


When the Exodus Begins

by miloowen



Category: NaNoWrimo 2013 - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Family Drama, Gen, Homophobia, M/M, Teenagers, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2017-12-31 20:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miloowen/pseuds/miloowen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when you realise your father is in love with another man? When you know it before your mother does? When it tears your family apart? When it's in the newspapers, and on television, and in the celebrity magazines? When your father marries the man whom you thought was your father's best friend? When you hate your father so much for what he's done to you, and your mom, and your brother? And just when you think it can't get any worse -- the weekends you have to spend with your dad and Hugh in their Brooklyn flat, the taunts of the kids and the bitterness of your mom -- your dad dies, suddenly, in his sleep. How do you grieve for the father you tried to hate?</p><p>The story of the love affair of two actors, Hugh Ross and Jonathan Weir, as seen through the eyes of Jonathan Weir's older son, Robin.</p><p>The title is from the Louise Gluck poem, "Lament."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is my NaNoWrimo novel for this year, 2013. The work is a spinoff of the Real World novel I am writing, written expressly for NaNoWrimo. My Real World novel, The Mortal Part, is the story of the actor Sir Hugh Ross, who loses the love of his life, his partner and spouse, the actor Jonathan Weir, and then must figure out how to go on through that first year of mourning, from sitting shiva to the unveiling. When the Exodus Begins is the story of Hugh and Jonathan as seen through the eyes of Jonathan's older son, Robin.
> 
> Both titles are derived from Louise Gluck poems, "Lament" for When the Exodus Begins and "The Triumph of Achilles" for The Mortal Part.

 

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

 

 

 

            He’d wakened, for what seemed like the millionth time, with an agonisingly sore throat and a stomachache.  He stumbled into the bathroom, fumbling in the vanity drawer for the thermometer his mother kept there, and sighing, placed it underneath his tongue.  He waited for it to beep at him, and, when it did, saw that he had yet another low grade fever.  He wiped the thermometer off with alcohol and dried it, and then slipped it back into the drawer.

            Opening the door to the bathroom, he called out, “Mom?” but nothing came out of his mouth except a croak.

            Kai opened the door to his bedroom, heading towards the bathroom, and said, “Nice going, Robby.  Sick again?” 

            Robin looked at his younger brother with undisguised envy.  Kai was built like their father, tall and lean, the epitome of health.  He nodded.

            “Can’t talk?” Kai asked.  He sounded a bit more sympathetic now.

            Robin shook his head, and slid past Kai back into his room.  He crawled back into bed, heard Kai say, “I’ll tell Mom,” and slipped underneath the blankets.  He had a geometry test and a world history quiz; he was supposed to go to ConnecticutCollege to the library with Mark, Justin, and Katie; he’d intended to go to the museum to see the new collection, which had opened last week.

            His life, he reflected, sucked.  Big time.

            He was dozing a bit when his mother came into the room.  It never failed to amaze him how beautiful she was, the great Clélie Campbell, currently starring in a police procedural that was set in her birth city of Montréal.  She was petite, perhaps a little rounder than she’d been when she’d starred as an iconic teenager in a famous TV series and then a soap, but her long honey-blonde hair was still natural and her light green eyes still startled those who expected the more normal blue.

            “What’s the matter, Robin?” she asked.  Her voice was low, in the contralto range; she’d never sung in any of her roles but he loved how musical her voice was.

            “Sick,” he whispered.  “Throat hurts.”

            “Strep again?” his mother asked.  He could hear the worry and the frustration in her voice.

            “Fever,” Robin acknowledged.  “Stomach hurts.”

            “Shit,” his mother said.

            Robin nodded.  She was on hiatus but he knew her schedule; she was doing some sort of a charity function in the city today.  His father, of course, was in LA.

            “I’ll call Joe,” his mother said.  “He can stay with you.  And I’ll get Maggie to call the doctor, see if we can’t get you in today.”

            He whispered, “What about school?  I have tests.”

            “If you have a fever, Rob, they won’t let you in, you know that.”  She rested her hand on his cheek for a moment.  “Let me get your brother off.  I’ll make you some tea.  Are you hungry?”

            Robin shook his head.  “No,” he answered.  “It’s not fair.”

            His mother smiled, suddenly – the one that lit up any room she was in.  “You know what Dad would say to that,” she said, and they both said it together, mimicking President Jimmy Carter, “There are many things in life that are unfair.”

            She kissed him quickly, even as he tried to duck away, and left the room.  He rolled his eyes; how many kids his age were still kissed by their moms?  It was embarrassing, even though he’d once overheard a discussion in the boy’s room at school about just how many kids at school wouldn’t mind being kissed by his mom.  That had been embarrassing, too.  Then he thought, probably just as many girls who’d want to be kissed by his dad – except somehow his dad was viewed as old, whereas his mom wasn’t.

 

 

            He’d fallen asleep, fitfully, and was saved from a bad dream by his uncle Joe knocking on his bedroom door.

            “Hey, Rob,” Joe said.  “Why don’t you come downstairs and watch some TV with me?  You should probably be drinking something.”

            “Did Maggie get the doctor?” he asked, his voice scratchy.

            “Yeah,” Joe answered.  “She’s taking you at three-thirty.  Sis won’t be back until dinnertime, so I’ll hang out with you until Maggie arrives.”

            Maggie was his mother’s personal assistant and their sometime-babysitter, when all else failed.  His uncle Joe was a studio musician with weird hours, and because he lived in Westbrook, he often filled in when there was a sudden need.  Robin waited until his uncle shut the door, and then he got out of bed and put his robe and flip flops on.  He followed Joe down the stairs and then down again into the basement rec room.

            “What’s on?” he asked.

            His uncle was already ensconced on the sofa, working at something on his laptop, ear buds firmly in place.  Robin glanced at the television but he’d already heard his godfather’s familiar accent, and then his father’s baritone.

            “They’re doing a marathon of your dad’s show,” Joe said, grinning.  “Some sort of anniversary or something.  This is a good episode.”

            Robin rolled his eyes.  He sometimes watched his mother’s cop show, and there was the show his father was directing that Kai watched, but the show that had made his father a star, the one that sent his father to all the conventions and had given him Hugh Ross as his godfather, that show was one he watched under duress.  He didn’t know why; he understood it was a terrific show for its time; he wasn’t stupid, he knew it had millions of fans who still watched it, years after it had gone off the air, but, Jesus.

            “Oh, come on,” he said to his uncle now, “do we have to watch this?  I hate this show.”

            Joe grinned again.  “You shouldn’t be talking, you’re going to hurt your voice,” he replied, “and there will be all kinds of hell to pay.  Besides, this is one of my favourite episodes.”

            “Whatever,” Robin said, and flung himself on the sofa.

           

            Joe took pity on him.  “Here, I’ll get you some tea,” he said, and placed his laptop on the floor.

            “I fucking hate tea,” Robin replied, but Joe just laughed and was up the stairs.

            Robin wrapped himself in his robe, tucking his legs underneath him because his feet were cold, and stared morosely at the screen.  He wondered if it bothered his father that his kids didn’t like his show.  If it did, his father had never said anything.  He’d never seen this episode before; Joe was right, it was pretty intense. 

            The premise of the show had been that Uncle Hugh’s character – whose name was Gordon or something like that – was a drunk who was hiding himself away on this island off the coast of Nova Scotia, but the island was some sort of gateway to another world, which Uncle Hugh’s character stumbled upon in the first or second show.  His father’s character lived in that other world, and was some sort of an advisor to the missing king or something; the plot was pretty convoluted.  It’d been based on a fantasy trilogy that Robin had tried reading once, but he hadn’t gotten very far into it – he thought the main character, the one his Uncle Hugh played, was an asshole.  It was, he thought, pretty hard to read a book about an asshole.

            Somebody was sick or something, Robin realised, as he felt himself drawn into the show.  His father was waiting with Uncle Hugh to hear the news.  They were talking quietly, back and forth, ignoring the real conversation, which wasn’t being said, for the trivial stuff they were saying; his father was drinking something, ale or something, he guessed, since it was all sort of quasi-medieval, like most fantasies.  Both his father and Uncle Hugh were underplaying their roles, which added to the tension in the scene; the scene was shot in low light, which made the shadows interesting, especially the one that fell across his father’s face.  He leaned forward a bit, to watch the interplay between his father and his godfather more closely – and then his father, who’d looked down at something as his godfather said his line, looked up again, directly at his godfather and Robin could see how blue his eyes were and Uncle Hugh’s answering hazel ones –and then there was a hole opening up in the pit of his stomach and he stopped breathing.

            His father was in love with his Uncle Hugh.

            How could that be possible?  Robin sat straight up and stared at the screen.  He was mistaken; he had to be.  He grabbed the remote off the coffee table and replayed the show from the beginning, not caring at all if he messed up the timeline for his Uncle Joe.  This time he watched with careful attention, following the plot closely, listening to the dialogue – was it possible that it was just that the character his father played, Kit de Ferrers, was in love with Gordon Ritchie, Uncle Hugh’s character?  But his father’s character was married on the show – he’d remembered that now – and he was pretty sure that back before he was born there were no gay characters on TV.

            When Joe returned with his tea, Robin said nothing; Joe simply placed the mug on the table and went back to his laptop.  He said, before he put his ear buds back in, “You rewound it to the beginning?”

            Robin nodded. 

            “You realise that messes up the timeline of the marathon, right?” Joe asked.

            Robin didn’t answer.  This was an episode in which his father was most prominent, with his Uncle Hugh only in two scenes; he hadn’t realised that his father was such a good actor.  Everyone knew Uncle Hugh was – he was part of the Royal Shakespeare Company, duh – but his father’s character was completely believable.  He didn’t get in the way of the story.  He _was_ the story.

            This time Robin examined the scene with his father and Hugh.  When the look came again, Robin was absolutely certain.  That look was not part of the character of Kit de Ferrers – _that_ look was Jonathan Weir.  And, as Robin watched, his world tilting on its axis, _that_ look was returned to his father by Hugh Ross.

            “You okay?” Joe asked, pulling out one ear bud.

            “Yeah,” Robin said.  He was glad his throat was sore.  There was no way Joe could hear how freaked out he was.

            “Still hate the show?”  Joe was grinning.

            “Yeah,” Robin said, but he couldn’t take his eyes away from the last scene, where his godfather left his hand to linger on his father’s arm maybe twenty seconds longer than he had a right to.

            Why had nobody said anything?  He wondered, if he typed into Google his father’s name and his Uncle Hugh’s – what would he come up with?

            He wasn’t stupid.  He’d grown up in the world of acting, after all.  He knew plenty of his parents’ friends and associates who were gay or lesbian.  He knew kids at school who were gay or lesbian.  It wasn’t the same anymore, the way it was when his father was a kid.  Nobody today cared what you were.  Not at his school, anyway.  But – how could he have not known?  And – did his mother know?

            Maybe, he thought, this is just part of the fever.  Uncle Hugh had been married, at least twice that he knew of.  He had grown-up kids – Robin had met them at various parties and cons – and at least one grandkid.  And his father – well, it had always been obvious that his father loved his mother.  Shit, his father could never keep his hands off her – it was embarrassing, to both Kai and him.

            Robin sighed, and he reached for his tea.  He hated tea; he only drank it when he had a sore throat because his mother and his voice teacher insisted.  This whole thing was because he was sick, he decided.  Sure, it had been a strange moment – but he was fourteen years old, for fuck’s sake.  He’d know if his father was gay.

 

           

            The rule was, even if you were sick, that you had to come to the dinner table, because everyone in the Weir family had dinner together.  It was the same sort of rule that put Robin and Kai in the car every Thursday for Hebrew school and every Sunday for Sunday school and every Friday they could for Shabbat services.  It was the reason why his parents had moved them from their Beverly Hills home to the no-man’s land of rural Connecticut.  Both his parents were freaks about the “family,” which is why Robin still felt shell-shocked as he sat down to the table that night.

            Joe had gone home, and that left his mom and Kai and Maggie at the table.  Usually, when his mom was on hiatus she cooked, but because she’d been in the city all day Maggie cooked.  She’d recently become a vegetarian so meals were an adventure; tonight it was some sort of eggplant casserole.  Normally Robin would have been happy to try this – he knew it was weird but he liked eggplant – but with his throat sore because of strep again he had a dish of cinnamon applesauce for his supper, and he doubted he’d be able to swallow much of that.  At least the doctor knew it was always strep, and had gone ahead and given him the antibiotics before getting confirmation from the lab.  He knew he should eat, simply because of the medicine.

            “What did you do with Joe today, sweetie?” his mother said now, looking over at him.

            He shrugged.  “Watched TV,” he croaked.

            “What was Joe doing, while you watched TV?” she asked.

            He knew she hated his sick days being wasted in front of the television.  “He watched it with me, mostly,” he answered.  “Worked on a new song on his laptop.  I helped.”

            “That’s cool,” Maggie said.

            “Yeah.”  Robin took a swallow of the applesauce.  It didn’t hurt too badly going down.

            “What did you and Joe watch?” his mom asked.

            He wondered why she was persisting.  He hoped she wasn’t going to go on another television kick.  It was so stupid, seeing as how that was how she and his dad supported their family.

            “Dad’s show,” Robin said.  He rolled his eyes.  “Joe made me.  There was a marathon on.”

            Kai snorted.  “Who did you piss off?” he said.

            “Language,” his mom said.  “And it’s whom did you piss off, not who.”

            Robin choked on some applesauce, because, really, only his mom and dad would say something stupid like that.

            “Why did he force you to watch it?”

            Okay, his mom was on a roll. 

            “Your father’s show isn’t good enough for the two of you?  It bought our lifestyle, after all,” his mom said.

            “Mom,” Robin said.  After today, the last thing he needed was for her to be upset.  He was already upset.  “It’s okay.  I didn’t like it before, that’s true, ‘cause I thought it was dumb.  But I saw a couple shows today and they were like really intense.  So it’s okay.  We had a good time.”  He was lying through his teeth but he was sick and she’d probably not notice.

            “That’s good, Robby,” she said, finally.  “You know, your dad does good work.  You should be proud of him.”

            Robin saw Kai roll his eyes and he said, “I am proud of him, Mom.”  He thought for a minute, and then he decided.  He had to know.  “How come I never see Uncle Hugh anymore?  He’s my godfather, isn’t he?”

            His mother said, “We see him when he’s in town.  We’ll see him at the holidays.  We always do, Robin.”

            “When’s Dad coming home?” he asked.

            “Friday,” his mom answered.  “Robin, you can contact your Uncle Hugh if you want.  I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”

            “Do you think Dad would give me his email?”

            “Of course he will,” his mom said.  “Why don’t you take a long hot shower, Robby, and go to bed.  You’ll feel better in the morning.”

            “Okay,” he agreed.  “Sure.  Thanks, Mom.”

            He accidentally-on-purpose banged into Kai on his way to the stairs and then ducked away when Kai reached back to punch him.  He heard Kai whinging to their mother as he climbed the stairs.  Served him right, the little puke, he thought, getting Mom all riled up the way he always did.  He took a hot shower and got into bed, grabbing his tablet, with the intention of playing his online RPG before he went to sleep.  He could hear the familiar sounds of the kitchen being cleaned up, and Maggie leaving for the night.  Then he heard the also-familiar sounds of Kai arguing with his mother about something – anything.  Kai looked more like their father, but he didn’t have his father’s easy-going nature.  Everything was an argument with Kai.

            Instead of going to his game, he went to Google, and he typed in his father’s name.  There were a few news articles about the show he was directing, and another show whose episode he was directing; there was an interview about his recurring character, the psychiatrist, on the detective show “Larrabee.”  He typed in his Uncle Hugh’s name, and got many more hits; he was starring in a Shakespeare play in London; he was bringing the play to New York, to Broadway; he was in the third in the blockbuster movies he’d made after the show’s last movie; he was seen escorting a number of actresses around; there was speculation he was in a relationship but no one knew with whom.  Robin could feel himself relaxing.  Surely if his Uncle Hugh was seen in the company of all those actresses, he couldn’t be having a – a _relationship_ – with his dad.  He’d clearly made the whole thing up.  Robin looked at the pictures of some of the actresses his godfather had been seen with, and thought maybe the one who was playing Miranda to his Prospero was the one he was seeing.  True, his Uncle Hugh was old – what was he, like sixty or something? – and this Miranda-actress looked like she was maybe thirty, but there was his friend Conor whose dad was like ancient and who had run off with a girl who was Conor’s oldest sister’s age.  The Miranda actress was hot.  Good for you, he thought, and he closed down Google and plunged into his game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin sends an email to his Uncle Hugh.

Chapter Two

 

 

 

            He was completely unprepared for his father’s reaction to his request.  He hadn’t brought the subject of his Uncle Hugh up to his mother again, because, as far as she was concerned, it was resolved.  Dad would give him Hugh’s email; he would write to Uncle Hugh; the end.  If he said anything to her about Uncle Hugh a second time, the Mom-dar (as Kai called it) would be on high alert.  Besides, he’d read those articles about Uncle Hugh.  His Uncle Hugh was apparently a sex-crazed old goat who was _shtupping_ half the actresses in London.

            So he was sitting in his father’s office, where he was watching his father glance out the window at the garden his father had created – the goldfish pond, the butterfly flowers, the flagstone path, the roses, all of which had scent – and he’d simply asked if he could write to Uncle Hugh, and his father was acting as if –

            Robin had been feeling better.  Really, he had.  He’d put it out of his mind, except that he just thought he’d write to Uncle Hugh and ask him if he really was bringing his play to New York, and would they get to see him.  That was all.  He didn’t have an ulterior motive anymore.  Just curiosity.  Maybe Hugh was bringing the Miranda actress with him.  That would be worth a lot at band practise.

            “Let me get this straight,” his dad said.  “You were home from school because you’ve had strep again?  How many tests did you miss?”

            Robin sighed.  “Dad,” he said patiently, “I went back to school after the forty-eight hours, okay?  I made up the tests.  I _always_ make up the work.  I have straight A’s, remember?”

            “Are we taking you to an ENT?” Jonathan Weir was looking out at the garden again.

            Was his dad ADHD or something?  Just what the hell was out there, anyway?

            “Isn’t that something you should be asking Mom?” he said.

            His dad focused his blue eyes – and they were blue, bluer than any eyes he’d ever seen – back on him.  “Are you being a smart ass, Robin?” he said.  “I know I’ve been away a lot lately, but I don’t think that gives you the right to speak to me that way.”

            “I’m sorry,” Robin said immediately; he wasn’t Kai, after all.  He didn’t want to engage his father in a fight in which he would surely lose.

            His father sighed.  “Of course I’ll speak to your mother about it,” he said.  “Explain to me why you want to email your godfather.”

            Robin shrugged.  “So I was home with Joe,” he answered.

            “Uncle Joe,” his father corrected.

            “Uncle Joe,” Robin amended.  “And there was this marathon on of your show.”

            “Which one?  _The Fallen_?”

            “Yeah.  And Uncle Joe wanted to watch it, while he was working on his new song.  So we sat on the couch and watched it.”

            “I thought you hated that show,” Jonathan Weir said.  “Didn’t you and Kai tell me it was too stupid for words, once?”

            Robin felt his face turn red.  “I’m sorry, Dad,” he said.  “I was just a kid.”

            His father was looking out the window again.  “Whatever,” he said.

            Robin was stunned.  He’d hurt his dad’s feelings?  And then he thought, it’s true, it’s really true.  Somehow nobody had ever figured it out, and his Uncle Hugh was taking out all of these young actresses because that’s what people expected him to do, because it was a cover, and oh my God, he thought, what was he going to fucking do?

            “You were saying?” his father said.

            “And it was like intense,” Robin continued, stammering a bit, because his whole explanation for contacting Hugh Ross was so inadequate now, “and I haven’t seen Uncle Hugh in a long time and I just wanted to talk to him.”

            “You haven’t seen him because he’s in London.”

            “Yeah,” Robin agreed.  “So that’s why I wanted to email him.”

            “I’m not sure I really understand,” his father said.  “This isn’t some weird dare that your friends put you up to?  Now that the next _Kingdom Come_ film is coming out?”

            Robin decided he’d try for normal.  Not for nothing his parents were both actors.  He rolled his eyes.  “Dad,” he said, and he elongated the word so that it sounded like sitcom teenager instead of his real self.  So it sounded, maybe, a little bit like Kai.

            His father caved.  “All right,” he said.  “But I don’t want to hear from Hugh that this was not what you say it is.”

            His father spoke the name Hugh as if it came out of his mouth all the time.  He wondered when the last time it was that his father saw his Uncle Hugh.  Surely, his father being who he was, if he’d gotten on a plane and flown to London someone would have said something?  Or if Uncle Hugh came to New York –He blinked.  But those Google articles had said his uncle had been in New York.  All the time.  Working out bringing the play here.  Oh.

            “You won’t, Dad,” Robin assured him.  After all, what would Uncle Hugh say when he wrote and asked if he was _fucking_ his father?

            He watched his father jot down his godfather’s email on a sticky note and hand it to him.

            “Thanks, Dad,” he said.  Then he said, “Dad?”

            His father was already on his laptop.  “Yes, Rob?”

            “I changed my mind about the show,” he said.  “I like it, now.  I guess I kinda had to grow into it.”

            His father gave him that high wattage grin, the one that had given him millions of fans and still kept them coming to the conventions.

            “Really?” he said.  “Thanks, kid.  That _kinda_ makes my day.”

            For a moment he was afraid his father was going to hug him, but he didn’t, just winked at him and turned back to his laptop and staring at the garden.  Robin made his escape, before he said what he really wanted to say.

 

 

            He went outside.  They owned maybe twenty-five acres of woods and creeks all the way down to the river.  He was a musician, like his Uncle Joe, like his dad, not an adventurer, but he still loved the property, so different from his first home in Beverly Hills, which had been in a gated community and which had a precisely manicured front for show and a back that was all pool and outbuildings.  His father had grown up in western Massachusetts, where his grandmother still lived, and had spent most of his childhood running around in the woods near his home.  He’d wanted it for his kids.  His mom, of course, had grown up in Montréal first, and then her parents had moved them to WestchesterCounty, because his mom’s parents had been actors too, in soaps and on Broadway.

            Kai was more athletic than he, but it was sports-oriented; soccer, and tennis, and basketball – Kai was going to be extremely tall, just like their dad, who was close to six-five.  He preferred the more quiet activities.  They had a canoe, down at their dock on the river, as well as his little sunfish and their skiff.  He was hoping to get an ocean-going kayak for Chanukah and Christmas.  And he liked to walk, to just look at everything.  When they’d first moved here his dad had taken them both on walks, pointing out animals and plants, teaching them how to fish for trout and carp and eel (although his dad discouraged eel-fishing, saying that they were endangered, since you can’t catch and release an eel).

            So as he walked to the place he’d claimed as his own, a rock and a deep pool in the creek, an old tree that was quite large, he occasionally stopped to note the woodpecker, to lift an old log to look for redbacked salamanders, to peer into the pool near the bog for tadpoles (toadpoles, Kai used to call them).  When he reached his spot, he took out his phone, and composed his email to Uncle Hugh.  _Hey, Uncle Hugh,_ he wrote, _this is your godson Robin Weir, hope you still remember me, lol.  I was sick the other day cause I always get strep and my uncle Joe (you remember him?  Didn’t he make a CD with you and Dad and Jack and somebody else once?) was with me and we watched your old show with Dad.  Which I didn’t used to like cause I thought it was stupid (sorry!) and cause I didn’t like your character Gordon (sorry again!) cause he really is an asshole at the beginning (omg don’t tell my dad I said that).  But Joe was like you should really watch it so I watched this episode Joe said was one of the best.  I don’t remember what it was called and I can’t look it up cause I’m writing outside where I won’t be bothered by my stupid brother who is NOT your godson lol.  It was mostly about Dad and some guy who was sick whose name I don’t remember but it was the character Charles plays.  And there was this scene near the end where everyone was waiting to see if Charles gets better and it was you and Dad in your like office or something (maybe it was Dad’s, I don’t remember) and the two of you were talking about stuff that wasn’t what you were worried about which was whether Charles’s character would live or die.  And I don’t really know how to write this or what to do but I’m hoping you won’t get mad but that you’ll know I’m only fourteen and it really freaked me out.  At the end of the scene Dad is looking down at his boot and you say something to him and he looks up at you.  And you have to promise that you’ll never tell my dad I asked you this or my mom when you see us for Christmas but maybe when you come back to New York for your play you can like meet me somewhere at Starbucks or something for coffee and let me know because I haven’t been able to sleep since I saw the show.  Because I saw the look my dad gave you and it didn’t make any sense but I know my dad so are you sleeping with him and are the two of you like gay?  It says on the internet that you’re dating that Miranda actress so I don’t know how it could be and my dad is always joking about how he’s really Mr Clélie Campbell instead of Jonathan Weir but I’m not stupid.  I’m fourteen.  Is my dad in love with you?  Please write me back.  Robin Weir_

            He walked back to the house.  When he got to his bedroom, he shut and locked his door, and pressed “send” on the email.

 


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uncle Hugh writes back.

Chapter Three

 

 

 

            It was Saturday, so there was no school, and he’d been able to beg out of going to Madison for services because he said he still tired from having been sick.  Kai had to go to services because he was going to have his bar mitzvah, which meant he had to go whether he wanted to or not.  One of the perks of being older was that you could watch your younger sibling suffer through something you’d already accomplished, but Robin was not in the mood to enjoy the _Schadenfreude_ of seeing his brother screw up his bar mitzvah.  It was seven hours time difference between Connecticut and London because of Daylight Savings Time.  He’d sent the email yesterday afternoon; he would hear back from Uncle Hugh sometime today, he hoped.  Or didn’t hope.  Maybe Uncle Hugh would think he was a stupid little kid and just ignore it.

            He went down to his spot in the woods and moped for a while, and then he went back home and sat in the back by the pool, which was enclosed, so leaves and bugs and frogs didn’t get in it, and he texted Katie and Justin and went on Facebook and Tumblr, and then, when he couldn’t take it anymore, he went to Google and typed in gay sex videos and clicked on the first free site that popped up.  He clicked on the very first video in the row of videos – and nothing asked him if he was over eighteen – and he watched two guys who looked like they were in their thirties suck each other’s cocks and then one of the guys fucked the other one in the ass.  That was when he shut his phone off and quietly puked into his mother’s roses by the pool.

            Maggie was there, working with his mother (who was Catholic, or who’d been raised Catholic but wasn’t anymore, she was more Unitarian or something, and so she was okay about working on Saturday, something his father tried not to do), and she saw him throwing up into the rose bush and came outside.

            “What happened?” she asked.

            He was still bent over, hacking away, and he choked a bit and said, “I don’t know, the medicine, I guess.”

            “Didn’t you eat breakfast?” she persisted.

            He shrugged, tears streaming down his face, but he didn’t know whether it was because he’d puked or because it was the idea of his dad doing what he’d watched.

            “Come on, Robby,” Maggie said kindly, and she took him by the hand and walked him back inside the house.  “Clélie,” she called, “Robby’s sick,” and she led him up the stairs to his room just as if he were a little kid again.

            He didn’t care.  He wished he were a little kid again, and his parents were just his parents, and not these strange people he didn’t even fucking know any more, and what was _wrong_ with his mother that she didn’t know that the guy she married was fucking gay?

            “Take a shower, Robby,” Maggie said, “and give me your clothes.  You’re going to be all right, kiddo.”

            “Okay,” Robin said.  He would never be better. 

            He took his shower and his mom was there to put him back to bed, as if she and Maggie had both decided that he needed the comfort of being treated as if he were five again.  She took his temperature and tucked him into bed and sat by him for a bit.  He thought he might just be able to fall asleep and forget that any of this had ever happened when he realised he’d left his phone down by the pool, and what if his dad wandered out there and read his email?

            “I left my phone,” he said, and he could feel hysteria bubbling up to the surface.  “It’s at the pool, Mom, my phone – “

            His mom said, “You kids – “

            “I’ll get it, Clélie,” Maggie offered.  “He probably feels like an arm is missing.”

            “Thanks, Maggie,” he said.  “Sorry,” to his mom.

            “Did something happen at school?” his mom asked.  “Something to upset you?  You had a fight with Katie, maybe, or a teacher?”

            He wondered briefly if Mom-dar was something that occurred as soon as you gave birth or if it was something that grew with your kids.  “Mom,” he said, and he tried to make his voice sound normal, “the only person I ever fight with – ever, Mom – is my stupid brother Kai and you know that.”

            She grinned.  “Of course I know that, Robby,” she said.  “You are definitely your father’s son.  My peacemaker.”

            Did that mean he was gay too?  Jesus.  Was gay something you inherited, like blue eyes or brown hair?

            “So you’re sure you’re okay?” she repeated.  “Aside from puking on my roses?”

            “Yeah, it was just the medication.  I feel okay now.  It was stupid, don’t worry about it, Mom, okay?”

            “Okay,” she agreed.  “Here’s Maggie with your phone.  Just rest, Robby.”

            “Yeah.”

            He took the phone from Maggie and slid down the bed until he was lying down, as if he were going to sleep.  His mom watched him for a minute and he closed his eyes, feeling his phone vibrate in his hand.  It was probably Justin, they were supposed to meet later and go out for pizza and the movies.  He waited until he heard her shut his door, and then he heard her say something to Maggie, and then he heard them both walk away.  His dad was still at services with Kai, but he could bet, because he knew his mother so very well, that she would say something as soon as his dad got home.  He knew, as he sat up and looked at his phone, and saw that he had two texts and one new email, that he’d better come up with a plausible excuse.  He didn’t really think he would be capable of lying to his mom for very long.

            He was afraid to look at his email, so he read the text from Justin, and then the text from Katie, and then he answered them both back, and then it occurred to him that he could pretend he’d had words with Katie, and she – drama major that she was – would go along with him.  She would even help him come up with a story.  She was always saying that she couldn’t understand how he could be the son of two actors, and the grandson of two actors, since he didn’t have seem to have gotten the acting gene at all.  He’d tried to explain once that his dad had been a musician first, and that he’d gotten into acting because he’d played piano for the drama department in high school, that his dad had gotten into acting through musical theatre, because he could sing, and dance, and act, as his dad liked to say, in that order.  Then he thought, my dad is selling his acting talent short, because he’s been acting his whole life.

            He clicked on the email, which was from his Uncle Hugh.

            _Dear Robin,_ it read _, I am writing this as if it were a letter because I don’t think that I communicate via email very well.  I was very pleased to see that you had written me, and I don’t mean that ironically, despite the content of said email.  I had hoped, when you got older, I might be permitted to have a larger role in your life, as a godfather is supposed to have, if one believes in the kirk and all that – and I know that your father considers you Jewish, but it seems to me that there’s a role for a godfather at a Jewish infant’s bris, so I could be a godfather to you doubly.  As to the contents of your email, for a minute I couldn’t think to which episode you were referring – Charles was ill?  -- but then I remembered, and I went and found my dvds – and I watched the episode again.  I say again, because I must have watched it at some point, mustn’t I have?  I can’t remember if I have ever watched all the episodes – ten years’ worth of episodes is quite a lot.  Anyway, I am stalling for time, as undoubtedly you know.  And I saw the look to which you were referring.  And I guess the bottom fell out for me too, because how could anyone have missed it?  And how perceptive of you to see it right away, when the fans must have seen it thousands of times and yet no one has really ever said anything (except Charles, and your aunt Natty, but that is another story)._

_I think it is probably a very good suggestion that you and I meet the next time I am in New York, and although I am not a fan of Starbuck’s I will gladly meet you at one if that is what you wish.  I have found a flat in Park Slope in_ _Brooklyn_ _and am in the middle of negotiating to buy it.  I don’t know if you have ever been to_ _Brooklyn_ _, but it is a lot of fun and very much like_ _London_ _.  Perhaps I could volunteer to do the whole godfather thing, and offer to take you to Coney Island, where they have the world’s largest wooden roller coaster if you like that sort of thing, and Nathan’s hot dogs and egg creams and salt water taffy if you don’t.  There are rides and a freak show and the beach and the boardwalk, and it is all very innocuous, and you can pretend you are having a wonderful time to your parents, and I can try to explain to you about your father and me.  I will even buy you a T-shirt so that it will be all above board._

_Because, even though I am loathe to write this in an email, you are absolutely correct about the look your father gave me, and the look I gave back to him.  I think I fell in love with your father the second time I met him, which was when he and I were both at auditions for The Fallen.  I am not really “gay,” as you say, more so I guess – or I know – you could say I am a bisexual, which means I am equally attracted to men and women, although for most of my life I have been mostly attracted to women – I was married to my first wife Barbara for a very long time, and we met when we were quite young – but I have dated some fellows too, and then I met your father, and it was as if I were seeing the world anew.  (Your father did not break up my marriage to my wife Barbara.  I did that all on my very own.)  Your father, however, was very obviously straight, and very happily married to your mother when I met him.  So you could, I suppose, cast me as the villain in your play, if that is what you wish to do.  By the fifth year of the show your father had fallen in love with me, quite to his surprise and his dismay, and it was very difficult for him to accept for a very long time.  I had no desire to break up his family and I still have no desire to do so.  So perhaps it is best that we talk, because I’m not sure what it is you have in mind to do.  I love your father very much, and he loves me.  We have been together for a long time, in the fashion that some theatre actors are, which you will probably learn about when you are older.  Your father loves you, and does not want to be the cause of any unhappiness for you, which is why he and I have worked very hard to not jeopardise his life with you and your mother in any way…._

_So.  I’m not sure where that leaves us.  Please let me talk to you first, before you talk to your father, if, indeed, you are going to talk to your father.  And please do not talk to your father without me talking to him first.  If he finds out from you that I have responded to you without consulting him, there would be a very big row between us, and I don’t like to quarrel with him.  You contacted me in the spirit of being a young adult, and I am reaching out to you in kind._

_I will call your parents and tell them that you emailed me to say hello, and that you wanted to see me, and then I will tell them that I would love to take you to Coney Island, if that is all right with them.  They will say it is, so be prepared for that._

_I hope that this is what you wished for me to do.  I am sorry for having caused you so much pain, and I hope that you are now over your case of strep throat._

_Your godfather, Hugh_

 

 

            Robin closed the email and placed his phone on his night table.  He took the blanket and wrapped it around himself, so it was partially covering his face, and then he rolled over, so that he was facing the wall, and he laid there, tears running down his face.  He wanted so badly to take everything back, to unsend his email, to unread his Uncle Hugh’s email, to _unknow_ that his father and his Uncle Hugh were lovers.  That they had sex together.  All the time.  For years.  While his dad was having sex with his mom.

            He wished he were dead.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hugh responds to Robin's email, and calls Jonathan.

Chapter Four

 

 

 

 

            He’d been in his dressing room, getting ready for the evening performance of _The Tempest_ , when he’d had a text message from Jonathan.  Jonathan rarely sent him text messages; it was something they’d agreed upon.  They each had a special mobile that they used to keep in touch with each other, the kind where you bought prepaid minutes and you couldn’t text.  For Jonathan to text him on his everyday mobile – something was clearly wrong.  _Robin emailing you.  Wants to see you.  Not sure why.  Call when you can._   It was so typically Jonathan, he thought, to absolutely refuse to use letters for words in a text.  He hesitated a bit, and then texted back, _Sure_.  Even if one of Jonathan’s boys saw that – even if Clélie saw that – it was completely meaningless.

            He waited, then, wondering if Jonathan would call, and, sure enough, his mobile rang.

            “Sorry,” he could hear Jonathan saying, his voice tinny on the cheap mobile’s network, “I know you’re getting ready for a performance, but I thought I’d give you a head’s up.”

            “I thought you wanted me to call you, Jon,” he answered.  He stood up, and walked over to the door, and locked it.  No point in letting the silly girl who played Miranda walk in.

            “Thought better of it,” Jonathan said.  “It’s just out of the blue.  He said he was watching an episode of the show and it made him want to see you.  I told him he could email you, becauseI couldn’t very well tell him no.  You are his godfather.”

            “I’m not sure what you’re upset about, love,” he replied.  “Of course he can email me, and of course he can see me when I’m in the city next.  It’s a reasonable request, given his age.”

            “Is it?” Jonathan asked.  “I don’t remember being particularly interested in any of my relatives at that age, even honorary ones.”

            “Perhaps you were a different child,” he said soothingly.  “These are different times.  You grew up practically smothered by family.  Maybe Robin’s feeling a little isolated, because of who his parents are.”

            He could hear Jonathan sigh, even over the terrible connection.

            “You’re right, of course,” Jonathan said.  “I’d better let you go.  You wouldn’t want to miss the shipwreck.”

            “Oh, it wouldn’t really matter,” Hugh replied, laughing.  “With all the bells and whistles in _this_ shipwreck, the audience wouldn’t even know I wasn’t there.”

            Jonathan snorted, that wonderfully indelicate sound Hugh loved.  “Whatever,” he said.  “They’ve paid a hundred pounds to see you, old man.  I’m sure they’d miss you.”  He paused, and then he said, “I miss you.”

            Hugh smiled.  “I miss you too, my darling,” he answered.  “New   York in two weeks, my love.  Wait ‘til you see the flat.  You’ll be chuffed, I promise.”

            “Okay.  Call me later?”

            “Aye,” Hugh agreed.  “Don’t worry, Jonno.  The lad’s just curious because the new film’s coming out.”

            “He said not,” Jonathan replied. 

            “He’s fourteen,” Hugh said.  “Of course he is.  He just didn’t want you to know.”

            Jonathan laughed.  “Break a leg, Hughie,” he said.  “Love you.”

            “Hold that thought,” Hugh replied, “and I shall make you say it a thousand times when we christen my new flat.”

            He could hear Jonathan rolling his eyes over the mobile, and he laughed as he turned it off.

 

 

 

            He wasn’t laughing, however, when he read the lad’s email.  He’d received it during the second act of the play, apparently, but of course it wasn’t until half an hour or so after curtain that he’d thought to check his mobile.  He was supposed to be taking the silly girl out for supper after – and he knew he shouldn’t be calling her that, because, really, she was a lovely child, with honey-coloured hair and light blue eyes and that English rose complexion – but as he read the email, he realised he wouldn’t be taking anyone out, anywhere.

            He knocked on her dressing room door and said, “Barrie?  Are you decent, darling?”

            She opened the door, and said, “Is there something wrong?”

            He sighed.  She really was lovely, and a nice girl, even if she was named after the paedophile playwright.  Whatever happened, he wondered, to girls named Margaret and Jean?  His own daughter was Elspeth, which was a perfectly sensible name for a Scottish lass.

            “I’m going to have to beg out, my dear,” he said apologetically.  “There’s an issue with the grandchild, apparently, and with Richard in France, Bethie called me.”

            Since Barrie didn’t know Bethie, and Bethie would never meet Barrie, it seemed a small lie to tell.

            “That’s fine, Hugh,” Barrie said, perhaps more easily than he would have liked.  They were supposed to be dating, after all.  “I’ve got a bitch of a headache, so it’s just as well.”

            “Oh,” he said sympathetically, “that’s no good.  What’s happened?”

            “Nothing, really,” she answered.  “Too much dry ice, I expect.”

            “There is that,” he agreed.  “Too bloody much of everything, in this play.  Shall I give you a lift home, then?”

            She smiled, then.  She really was a beauty.  “No, ta, Hugh, that’s great, but I can get a lift from Teddy or someone.  You run along, and I’ll see you anon.”  She said it with such innocence – as if she’d discovered Shakespeare all by herself – that he just smiled.

            “Good, then, I’m glad you’re not bothered.  On the morrow,” and he found he could say that to her, at least, without irony, although he could just see Jonno rolling his eyes yet again.

           

 

            He drove home, parked the car in the garage, and then drifted into his study, where he slumped down into the armchair by his desk and took out his mobile and read his godson’s email again.  For someone who was fourteen, he thought, it was very young; very young indeed, and he wondered if Jonathan and Clélie had sheltered their kids too much.  He’d been ready to leave school and start his real life at fourteen; he’d known several mates who had.  He hadn’t, of course; he’d left school at sixteen with most of his classmates; yet he couldn’t imagine a child like Robin Weir leaving school and making his way in the world. 

            Well, it was a different time.  He’d been a child in World War II and through the deprivation after; you had to be resilient, or you died.  Robin was a child of extreme privilege and perhaps that stunted emotional growth – he didn’t know.  He was, as with most actors, a student of the human condition, but this – this was personal, not academic.  He needed, he realised, as he re-read the lad’s email for the third time, to tread very, very softly here.  

            He would have to watch the episode Robin had seen.  He had to think, first, what he’d done with the new Blu-ray boxed sets of the first – what was it now, eight seasons of the show?  His son David had given him a Blu-ray player and had set it up for him.  He stood up, stretched, and opened the closet door; sure enough, there were the boxed sets.  He’d just shoved them in there, thinking – thinking what?  He didn’t know.  It’s not as if he’d thought he’d ever watch them.  Maybe he was saving them for the grandchildren, when they were old enough.

            Metaphorically he shrugged.  He thought perhaps it would be season five or season six, the episode Robin had seen.  He had to open the bloody things first.  Twenty minutes later and he was ready for a drink.  Finally he found the episode he thought he was looking for and read the synopsis.  Surely, that was the one.  Dai, without being particularly obnoxious about it, had written down the instructions for how to operate the Blu-ray player and the television at the same time.  He took another twenty minutes at this, and finally, sat down to watch the episode.

            He was amazed to realise he actually remembered this episode and the filming of it.  He remembered being pleased with the script, even though this was one where he had only two scenes, because they were both powerful, well-written scenes.  The episode was really about Jonathan’s and Charles’s characters; he was incidental.  Pivotal, but incidental.

            He tried to see it through the lad’s eyes.  He knew, of course, that Jonathan’s kids didn’t like or understand their father’s show and why it had had such an impact on popular culture.  His own children had been actually part of the process; both Dai and Bethie had even made appearances as child actors; Dai more than once, before Barbara had become fed up with his inability to understand her hatred of LA and his sudden rise to fame, and had taken herself and both children back to London.  He’d lost all those years with his own children, even up and through Dai’s early adulthood, when he’d gone to St Andrews and then had stayed in Edinburgh.  It was the reason why he’d accepted Jonathan’s marriage as a given in their relationship.  He didn’t really care anymore whether anyone thought he was gay or not, whether someone out there would refuse to see one of his films because he was openly living with another man.  But Jonathan – Jonathan had been a different story.  They’d had a hard road together, yet somehow they had managed to make it work. 

            He found himself becoming engrossed in the episode, much as Robin must have been.  He felt himself glowing with ridiculous pride over the brilliance of Jonathan’s acting, which had been so overlooked during those years on the show, when everyone was discussing his own acting, or Jack’s.  He saw all the little nuances between himself and Jonathan in the scene where Charles was injured.  And then there was the scene which Robin had referenced, in Kit de Ferrers’s study; he and Jonathan talking about nothing and everything, the desk between them, Jonathan drinking something, Jonathan looking down and then Jonathan looking up again, his deep blue eyes gazing into Hugh’s own, and he saw himself reflected back, and there was that moment – that’s all it was, a moment, in real time, but on the stage – oh, on the stage it lasted a lifetime; and he saw in Jonathan’s beloved face and his beautiful eyes everything he’d ever felt for him.  For me, he thought, and he could barely catch his breath.  That look was only for me.

            He wanted to find his mobile and call Jonathan right back, and tell him a million times how much he loved him, Jonathan Craig Weir (such an _American_ name, he thought), and then he thought, Hughie, me lad, take a breath.  Jonathan was at home in Connecticut with Clélie and his boys.  He couldn’t, and he wouldn’t, take the risk.  In his mind he pictured Jonathan in his study of the saltbox he and Clélie had bought in Lyme, a beautiful room with golden floors and wide windows, overlooking the garden that Jonathan himself had designed.  That’s where Jonathan would be now, working on his laptop perhaps, working on a new episode of the show he directed, or reading a new script for the series he was in, or perhaps looking at product to develop.  He’d been asked to sing the title role in _Man of La Mancha_ for a benefit for abused children, one of Jonno’s many charities; maybe he was reading the score….

            Hugh read the email a fourth time.  I should answer the lad right away, he thought, and then he would have a stiff drink, and he’d nip down and around the corner for some Indian take-away, and maybe he’d call Bethie and see how she was, seeing as how he’d taken her name in vain.  He thought about what he should say, and then he began to write.

            Jonathan was not going to be happy with him at all.

            He finished the email, hoping that it set the right tone and that it said what it needed to say without sending the poor wee lad spiraling into a depression, and then he realised that it was well after midnight, far too late for a curry and be able to function in the morning.  So he wandered into his kitchen and fixed himself a couple of eggs and some toast, and ate it, and then fell into bed.  He’d send the email in the morning, and then he’d call Jonno and ask if he could take Robin to Coney Island.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin's anger at his father increases, and he -- despite promising Hugh he wouldn't talk to anyone -- tells his best friends what's going on.

 

 

Chapter Five

 

 

 

           

            When he awoke, he read the email from Uncle Hugh again.  It occurred to him that perhaps his godfather was as stressed out about this as he was, and maybe he should send an email back saying he didn’t intend on speaking to his father at all.  He stretched and sat up, read through all the texts from Justin and Katie that he hadn’t yet answered, and thought about what he was going to say while absently petting the cat, who for some reason always knew when someone wasn’t feeling well.

            He couldn’t have been asleep very long, because he heard the car door slam, and the front door open, and the stupid dog bark, and his father and Kai come in, Kai arguing loudly about something, his father responding in his abstracted I’m only pretending to listen voice.  He heard Kai come pounding up the stairs and slam the door to his room.  He knew what the fight was about; Kai had probably decided that it was too much work to have a bar mitzvah, and he was going to be Catholic like his mother.

            Life was back to normal, and he was comforted, in a stupid sort of way.  He wrote  the email to Uncle Hugh.  _Hey, Uncle Hugh (should I still call you that?), thank you for writing back to me.  Don’t worry, I don’t want to talk to Dad about this.  I’m not going to talk to anyone about this.  Not until I see you.  I don’t really like roller coasters or amusement parks but I’ve heard of_ _Coney Island_ _and Nathan’s and it would be ok to go.  When are you coming to NY?  I will let you call Dad.  He was really strange about me emailing you so you can talk to him I guess you must talk to him a lot.  I am still really freaked out but I guess I will just have to wait._ He signed Robin and pressed send.

            He texted Justin and Katie back and told them he’d been sick to his stomach, and that probably his mom wouldn’t let him go out now, but that they should come over.  They could hang out and maybe if they stayed a couple hours his mom would see he was okay and they could go.  He got out of bed and cleaned up in the bathroom, and then as he went down the hall he banged on Kai’s door.

            “Hey!” he said.  Of course Kai had locked the door – this was against Weir family rules, no locked doors –and he said, “I’m telling,” just because he knew it would rile Kai up and he’d open the door.

            “Asshole,” Kai said, opening the door.  “What do you want?”

            “What were you fighting with Dad about?”

            “What do you think?” Kai said, and slammed the door.  This time he didn’t lock it.

            “Think of all the money you’ll get,” Robin said.  “You can ask for a cruise party or something.  I know, you could ask Mom and Dad to rent one of the Circle Line boats and you could go around Manhattan for your party.”

            “Fuck you,” Kai said.  “Mom and Dad would never do that.  We don’t draw attention to ourselves,” he said, mimicking his father’s voice.  “They’re fucking _actors_.  Of course they draw attention to themselves.”

            “Yeah, but not like in _People_ magazine,” Robin said through the closed door.

            “No, of _course_ not,” Kai said.  “Fucking hypocrites.”

            “You would want that?” Robin was momentarily surprised.  “You’d want us to be in like _People_ magazine or something?”

            “What’s the good of your parents being famous actors if they never do anything?” Kai said.  “I bet there are lots of kids in Beverly Hills who have great bar mitzvah parties.”

            “I thought you weren’t going to be Jewish anymore,” Robin said.

            “We aren’t Jewish,” Kai answered, and he opened the door.  “Mom never converted, and she won’t, so we aren’t really Jewish, and we just go to these stupid Reform temples where they’ll let _anybody_ be Jewish.  I bet they’d let _the cat_ be Jewish.”

            Robin laughed.  “I’d like to see you put a _kippah_ on the cat,” he said.

            “I bet they make _kippot_ for cats,” Kai said, and he laughed too.

            “Going to the movies and pizza later, do you want to come?” Robin knew his brother wouldn’t want to hang out with Justin and Katie but he thought he’d ask.

            “Nah,” Kai said.  “I’m playing tennis, later.”

            “Okay,” Robin said, and he trotted downstairs to wait for Justin and Katie.

 

 

            It had taken some time, but his mother had finally given in to his protestations that he was all right, and that his throwing up in the rose bush had had more to do with the antibiotic than it had to do with him still being sick.  She’d allowed Justin and Katie to hang out with him by the pool, until finally she’d given in to the movie and pizza that had been promised before he’d been sick, and Maggie was given the job of running them to the pizza parlour and then onto the movies.

            Katie said, as soon as they’d ordered, “Okay, Christopher Robin.  Talk.” 

            When they’d been younger they’d decided they were all characters from Milne’s stories; obviously, because of his name, Robin was Christopher Robin; Katie was Tigger – no surprise there – and Justin was Eeyore.

            “Talk about what?” Robin asked.

            “Maggie’s giving us _space_ ,” Katie said with a wicked grin, “so why don’t you tell us what’s going on?  Nobody throws up in the roses because of medication they’ve been taking all week.  And you – you wouldn’t do something like that at all.  You’re embarrassed when you _sneeze_ , for Christ’s sake.  So what’s going on?” 

            “Look,” Justin said reasonably, except that he sounded so silly being reasonable because he had such a deep voice for such a short, round kid, “we _know_ you, Robby.  I’ve known you since fifth grade.  So just tell us what happened.  We know something did.”

            “It’s stupid,” Robin said, stalling for time.  “I just decided I wanted to see my godfather.  You know, like get to know him.  So I asked my dad if I could email him and he got a little weird and then he said yes.  So I emailed him and he’s going to take me to Coney Island when he comes to New York in two weeks.  Or at least that’s what he said when he emailed me back.”

            Katie said, “You hate amusement parks.  We have to drag you to Playland.”

            “Who’s your godfather again?” Justin asked.

            “Kai and I both have godparents from Dad’s show,” Robin said.  “Just like Dad is godfather to Tory Chapman’s kid.”

            “Yeah,” Justin said, “but which one of them is your godfather?”

            “It’s him, isn’t it?” Katie said.  “Hugh Ross.  From _Kingdom Come_.”

            “You mean the guy who plays the old Superman?” Justin said. 

            “Yeah,” Robin answered.  “He was Gordon in my dad’s show.  He’s in a play in London and he’s bringing it to New York.”

            “And he’s taking you to Coney Island?  Hugh Ross is taking you to Coney Island?”  Katie tended towards the dramatic.

            “Well, yeah, if my parents say yes,” he answered.

            “Why wouldn’t they say yes?” Justin asked.

            “Uncle Hugh is really famous,” Robin said.  “People would take pictures.  My parents don’t like to have pictures of me out there.”

            “You have a Facebook page,” Katie said.

            “Yeah,” Robin said, “but it’s a protected one.  And my dad’s famous, but he’s not as famous as Uncle Hugh.”

            “So you were throwing up because you’re going to Coney Island with Hugh Ross?” Katie persisted.  “Robin, that doesn’t even make any sense.”

            He didn’t say anything.  He took a sip of his Coke and said, “Are we ever gonna get our pizza?”

            “Maggie’s looking at us,” Katie said, and she motioned to the waitress, who was one of the kids at the local high school.  “Can you tell us how many more minutes on the pizza?” Katie asked.

            “Yeah, well,” the girl said, “we make the pizzas from scratch, duh.  Ten minutes, okay?”

            “Yeah, thanks,” Katie said, and flashed ten fingers at Maggie, who was texting on her phone.

            “Prep school twat,” the girl said under her breath and walked away.

            “Don’t,” Robin said to Katie, “say anything, please.  Maggie will come over here if you make a scene.”

            Katie said, “I’d like to smash her face in, the grotty bitch.”

            “Robin was going to tell us the truth,” Justin reminded her.  “Don’t get distracted, even though I know it’s hard.”

            “Oh, shut up,” Katie said, and then she laughed.  “So tell us the real reason why you threw up.  And what does this have to do with Hugh Ross?”

            Robin thought for a minute and then he said, “We’ve known each other since fifth grade.  I love you guys.  If I tell you, you have got to swear on your lives that you won’t say one word to anyone about it.  Not your parents.  Not your sister, Katie, or anyone in your family, Justin.  Not even Mark or Noel or _anyone_ else you can think of.  You can’t Facebook it or Tumblr it or tweet it.  I’m serious.  If you do, I will never speak to either of you ever again, even if it’s only one of you who told.”

            “What if someone overhears us?” Justin asked. 

            “I’ll write it down on my notepad on my phone and you can read it and then I’ll delete it,” Robin said.  “We can talk about it outside, at my house in the woods, but never where anyone could ever hear us.”

            “I swear,” Justin said so solemnly that he did, indeed, sound exactly like Eeyore.

            Robin looked at Katie.  Finally, Katie said, “Maybe we don’t want to know this, if it’s that important.”

            “I told my Uncle Hugh that I wouldn’t talk to my parents,” Robin said, “before I talked to him.  And I won’t be able to talk to him until I see him in two weeks, if my folks say it’s okay.”

            Katie hesitated, and then she said, “Is it really that bad?”

            Robin felt his eyes fill up with tears and then he got angry.  “I hate my father,” he said, and he found that this was absolutely true.  “And I never hated anyone before, not really, not even Kai.”

            “Write it down,” Katie said.

            Their pizza came, the Greek pizza that they all liked, and while they were taking slices and eating, Robin took out his phone and went onto his notepad and wrote, _My dad is gay and he is sleeping with Uncle Hugh.  I asked Hugh if it was true.  It is.  For like over twenty years.  Even before I was born.  I hate him!_

            He showed his phone to Katie and Justin, just some kid showing a Facebook page or a tweet or a text like any other kid, in case Maggie was watching.  He didn’t want to see the looks on Justin and Katie’s faces and he said, “Don’t look surprised, okay?  Maggie’s here, remember?”

            “That’s why you’re meeting him?” Katie asked.

            Robin nodded.  He wasn’t really hungry now, but he ate his slice of pizza anyway.

            “Dude,” Justin said.  Then he looked away.

            “It doesn’t make me _gay_ ,” Robin said in a low voice, angry.  “It’s not like it’s fucking contagious or genetic or whatever.”

            “It wouldn’t matter to me if you were,” Katie said defensively.  “I don’t have any issues with people who are gay.  My aunt Bianca is a lesbian.”

            “I know,” Justin said miserably.  “I just….Shit.  I guess I woulda puked too.”

            “Yeah,” Robin agreed.  “Shit.  It’s all shit.”

            “You’re sure?” Katie asked.

            “You can,” Robin offered, “read the email.”

            He deleted what he’d written, and then he showed the email he’d gotten back from Hugh.

            There was silence at the booth while Katie and Justin read the email, with Justin reading so slowly that Robin just wanted to get up and walk away.  Finally he decided he’d go to the restroom, and he left the two of them there with his phone.  When he came back neither one of them would look at him, and he said, 

            “You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

            “I won’t,” Katie said.  “I wouldn’t even know what to say.  God.  I can’t believe it.  What are you gonna do?”

            Robin shrugged.  “We can’t talk about it here, remember?  I’ll go to Coney Island with Uncle Hugh.  I’ll listen to what he says.  I don’t know what I’ll do after that.”

            “Your mom will want a divorce,” Justin said.  “That was the first thing that happened to me, when my dad cheated.”

            “At least,” Robin said, “your dad cheated with a girl.”

            “She was the same age as Emily,” Justin reminded them, Emily being his oldest sister.  “Now he’s going out with someone who’s younger than Emily.  What a scumbag.”

            “Here comes Maggie,” Robin said.

            “Are you guys almost done?” Maggie asked, walking over.  “You’ll miss the movie.”

            “Yeah,” Robin said, getting up.  “We’re done.”

            The three of them cleaned up the booth, and Justin left the extra pizza on the table.

            “You’re just going to leave it there?” Maggie looked over at the box of half-eaten pizza.  She got no answer, so she said, “What a waste of food.”

            “We need to save room for popcorn,” Katie said.

            Maggie rolled her eyes, and the three of them followed her out to the car.  At the movies Katie had to get the popcorn, which she promptly gave to Justin, and they got drinks.  Maggie left them, saying she’d wait for Robin’s text when they were done.

           

 

            The movie was okay, and Robin was able to forget about everything for two hours and forty minutes, which was good.  Afterwards, they didn’t say much, going home, talked about the movie, mostly, and which scenes were the scariest, and whether Justin had really jumped in his seat or not (he said not).

            His dad’s silly Border collie met them at the door, barking and wagging her whole body, and he hugged her tightly, getting her stinky doggie smell all over him before he let her go.  She was pretty old, but you wouldn’t know it, still prancing and jumping all over the place.  His mom’s greyhound was much more sedate, and had waited until Sunny was finished with her meet and greet, and then simply walked up to him and stuck her nose in his palm.  He petted her for a few minutes to, and heard his mom call, “You back, Robby?” which was a typically stupid thing for any parent to say.

            “No, I’m a home invader,” he called back, and went up the stairs to his room.

            “Well, we always knew the dogs were useless,” his mother said at the bottom of the stairs.

            “Shoulda got the attack cat instead,” Kai called out from the kitchen.

            Robin reached his room and shut the door.  There was a text from Katie already, and he plopped down on his bed and read it.  _Don’t worry_ , it read, _u can trust me._   He was beginning to think maybe he’d made a mistake, in telling them, and it was good to know that Katie knew him so well that she knew he’d be worried. 

            He kicked off his shoes, and propped himself up on his bed, grabbing his 3DS from under his pillow and starting his game.  He was so engrossed in it that he didn’t hear the knocking on his door until it opened and his father said,

            “Robin.”

            “Oh,” Robin said.  “Sorry.”

            “I can come in for a moment?”

            “Yeah.”  Even though he didn’t want to speak to him.  He didn’t even want to look at him.  He couldn’t look at him.

            “Your Uncle Hugh called me,” his father said.  He was standing by the door, as if he were unsure whether to come in or not.  Then he said, “Robin.  Pause the game.  I’m talking to you.”

            “I’m in a boss battle,” Robin said.

            “I thought it was fourteen-year-old _girls_ who were supposed to be difficult,” his father replied.  “Pause the game.”

            “You made me lose,” Robin said and he hated how stupid he sounded.  “What?”

            “What is the matter with you?”

            “Nothing.”  Robin put the game down and looked at his father.  “Uncle Hugh _said_ he would call you.”

            “Well, he did,” Jonathan Weir said, and he pulled the chair over from Robin’s desk and sat down.  “He’s offered to take you to Coney Island.  He told me he’d already emailed you this.  He’ll be in the city in two weeks, and he’ll take you on a Friday.  I said it was okay, just this once, for you to miss school.”

            “Thanks,” Robin said, and picked up his 3DS again.

            “Why would you tell him Coney Island was okay?  You hate amusement parks.”

            “He wanted to show me Brooklyn, ‘cause he’s gonna live there when the play comes to New York,” Robin answered.  “He didn’t care that I don’t like roller coasters.  There’s other stuff to do, Nathan’s and the Aquarium and stuff.”

            “Well, your mom and I said yes,” his father said.  “Your brother will put up a fuss.”

            “So what else is new?” Robin said.  “Dad.  Can I play now?  If I don’t restart the game, I’ll lose everything.”

            His father said, “So just out of the blue you wanted to spend time with your godfather?  Just because Joe made you watch an episode of the show?”

            “Yeah, I guess.  I thought godparents were supposed to, like, do stuff with you.”

            His father sighed.  “Which episode did you see again?” he asked.

            Robin shrugged, and tried to concentrate on the game.  He could feel his stomach twisting.  “I don’t know,” he answered.  “I don’t remember what it was called.”

            His father was silent.  “You don’t remember what it was about?”

            “Dad,” Robin said, and elongated the word, the way teens were supposed to.  This was his father’s cue to leave.

            “It’s just that I wondered what it was about that specific episode that made you want to see your godfather, when you’ve never been remotely interested before,” his father said.  “Did you mention the episode to Hugh?”

            Robin wanted to scream.  In fact, he wanted to scream that it was the episode where it looked as if his father wanted to fuck his Uncle Hugh right there on the set.  Instead, he said, “Oh, my God.  It was the one where Charles got hurt and everyone thought he was gonna die, okay?”

            “Don’t say ‘oh my God,’” his father said automatically.  “Fine, Robin.  Are you sure it’s not because you want to tell everyone in school that your godfather is Hugh Ross who plays Superman in the movie coming out?”

            “He plays _old_ Superman,” Robin said, “and it’s totally stupid that he plays him with a Scottish accent.”

            “Okay.” His father stood up.  “I’m not sure what’s really going on, Robby, and it’s not like you, whatever it is.  I don’t think I’m particularly happy with you, at the moment.”

            Robin said, without looking up, “Yeah, well, like maybe if you were _home_ , I wouldn’t be interested in my godfather.”

            His father stood there for a minute, silent.  “The price of living in Connecticut is that I have to be away a lot,” he said, and Robin could hear the anger in his voice.  “My work is in California.  Your mother’s work is here.  Your mother’s family is here.  This is the compromise that we made, so you would have a somewhat normal lifestyle and could go to good schools.  Do you really want me to move everyone back to Beverly Hills?”

            “I don’t really care what you do,” Robin said.

            His father said, “I’m not sure I like your attitude.  Do you want to go on this trip with Hugh?  Because I’ll call him right now and tell him no.”

            “I’m sorry,” Robin said, and he tried to make his voice sound sorry, the way it used to, when he really didn’t like to fight with his father.

            “Thank you,” his father said, with some dignity, and walked out of Robin’s room, closing the door softly behind him.

            Robin waited until he heard his father’s footsteps down the hallway, and then he said, “Fuck you.  Faggot.”

           

           

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan Weir realises that his son knows about his relationship with Hugh Ross.

Chapter Six

           

 

 

 

            He’d been excited, when he’d heard from Gail, who’d long been his personal assistant as well as his general everything in his development company (which employed two people, himself and Gail, and was named after Amherst, Massachusetts, where he grew up), that he’d been asked to sing the role of Miguel de Cervantes in an orchestral production of _Man of La Mancha_.  It had long been one of his favourite musicals, that and _Showboat_ (and of course there was no real role for him in _Showboat_ , Gaylord Ravenal was supposed to be a tenor, although Howard Keel had sung the role in the second film), and he’d been lucky enough, as a child, to have seen both Richard Kiley and Allan Jones (the original Gaylord Ravenal) as Cervantes.  It was only for one night, as a benefit gala, but it would mark his return to Broadway since his early twenties, when he’d appeared in the chorus of such musicals as _Grease_ and _The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas_.  And, of course, it kept him in New York at the same time that Hugh would be bringing over _The Tempest_.

            He was in his office, gazing out the window at the butterfly garden, watching a ruby-throated hummingbird dart around the hollyhocks and the birdfeeder.  He had the vocal score in his lap, and had been humming through the opening introduction, _I, Don Quixote_ lazily when his cell – Hugh’s cell – phone rang.

            “Hugh,” he said. 

            “Sorry, love,” Hugh said, sounding a million miles away, “I’m calling from the dressing room and it’s very noisy here.”

            “You’ll have to shout,” Jonathan said.  “You sound so far away.”

            “I _am_ far away, you great big eejit,” Hugh said.  “Listen, about your lad.”

            “Yes? What about him?”

            “He wants to see me,” Hugh said.  “He asked, in the email he sent.”

            “Why?” Jonathan asked.

            “Oh, love, we’ve already talked about this,” Hugh answered.  “He’s excited about the film, no doubt.  Maybe he’s bored.  Who knows?  Anyway, I told him I would take him to Coney Island when I come over in two weeks.  Will that be all right with you and Clélie?”   

            “Coney Island?” Jonathan repeated.  “Why would you want to take Robin there?”

            “Well, you know,” Hugh said, “I thought I’d show him Brooklyn, and most kids like Coney Island, don’t they?”

            “Robin hates amusement parks,” Jonathan said flatly.

            He could hear Hugh sigh.  “Jonno,” Hugh said, “darling, please, please don’t be difficult.  The lad already said he’d like to go.  It will give us a chance to get to know each other a little bit.”

            He looked out the window and he bit the edge of his finger.  “I just don’t buy any of this,” he said, finally.  “Hugh.  You’re not keeping something from me, are you?  You know how much I hate that.”

            “Jonno, my love,” Hugh said, “there is nothing to keep.  The lad wants to see his godfather, that’s all.  Just say yes, Jonno.  You know Clélie will approve.  I’ll take him on the Friday after I get in, all right, darling?”

            “When are you flying in again?” he asked.

            “That Tuesday,” Hugh answered.  “So you’ve said yes?  Because I’m supposed to be in some sort of a photo with the child and they’re calling me over the intercom.”

            “Which child?” Jonathan asked.

            “Oh, Barrie, the child who plays Miranda,” Hugh said. 

            “Her name is Barry?  Like Barry Bonds?”

            “No, _Barrie_ , as in our friend James, the paedophile playwright.  Who’s Barry Bonds?”

            “A footballer,” Jonathan said, and he laughed.

            “What you know about football, Jonathan, could be placed in a china teacup,” Hugh replied.  “You did say yes?”

            “Yes, I said yes,” he agreed, “and you’re right, Clélie will think it’s wonderful.  And I know enough about football to support Barcelona.”

            “Which means you know nothing at all,” Hugh replied.  “Love you, my darling, and don’t get your knickers in a twist about this, eh?  Everything is fine.”

            “Okay,” Jonathan said, and hung up.

            But it wasn’t okay.  He placed the score down on his desk and walked over to the window.  He opened it and stood there, breathing in the cloying scent of the flowers and listening to the sound of a tractor somewhere, the next property over, perhaps.  Robin was out with his friends and Maggie; Clélie had taken Kai shopping; he was alone in the house.  He looked down at the dog, and she raised her head hopefully, letting her tail thump against the braided rug.  He sighed.

            “Want to go for a walk?” he asked her, and she leapt up joyfully, her tail helicoptering.  “C’mon, then,” he said, and he walked over to the door, where he kept her leash on a hook, and she followed him, panting, as he strode through the house to the kitchen.  He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and opened the kitchen door, and then watched as she bounded down the steps and then ran concentric circles around the back garden in spectacular fashion.

            He called, “Sunny.  Come,” and then headed through the stone wall and off into the meadow, down the trail towards the woods and the river.  It was one of those rare oppressively hot June days, and he wondered if there’d be a storm later, coming down the river.  Sunny followed him in her usual fashion, leaping after grasshoppers and chasing birds, then circling around back to him, panting.  He stopped at the creek to let her drink, and she splashed into the water, then jumped back up on the bank and shook all over him. 

            “Jesus, Sunny,” he said, and she just looked up at him, laughing.

            He walked down the trail to the river and then out onto their wooden dock, and thought about maybe taking the skiff out.  He looked up the river towards Hartford, expecting to see the beginning of storm clouds, but he could see nothing, just the bright spring green of the trees and the haze of the afternoon light.  He walked to the end of the dock and sat down, motioning the dog to come with him, and he took off his deck shoes and dangled his feet in the water. 

            He didn’t know what was up with Robin, but something clearly was.  And whatever it was, Hugh was somehow complicit in it.  Taking Robin to Coney Island.  He couldn’t imagine Robin at Coney Island.  He remembered the last time they’d taken the kids to Playland; Kai had wanted to go on every ride and Robin had sulked the entire time, even during the fireworks.  He wondered how Hugh would manage the publicity of his being at Coney Island, and then he worried that Robin’s picture would end up all over the internet and twitter.  Perhaps, he thought, he should use the opportunity of the house being empty to look at the episode of the show that Robin had seen.  He was sure the two were related – and he was equally sure, knowing Hugh as he did, that when Hugh said he _shouldn’t_ get his knickers in a twist, they were, indeed, already twisted.

 

 

            In his office he looked up the episode, which had really been, he remembered, a fan favourite for Charles, and he streamed it on his laptop.  He could see where Robin might be drawn into it, where he might be able to see it with new eyes.  He was proud of the show; he didn’t particularly care that there were people who looked down on it, and fantasy and speculative fiction; they had done good work, on that show.  It had become, by the middle of the second season, a collaborative effort, and even when the script writing had faltered, by and large the acting hadn’t.  And they were all friends, weren’t they, the whole lot of them, Jack and Callie, Charles and Susie and Tory, and even Alden, when he’d grown up, and Hugh….

            Hugh.  He’d surmised that there would be some sort of a connection, some sort of inciting action, that would have prompted Robin to decide that he needed to reach out to his godfather, and he’d hoped that it hadn’t been what Robin had intimated, that it was because he was never home.  It was certainly true, he was never home.  He wasn’t exactly sure how he’d managed to acquire this lifestyle that he had, how he’d gone from a run-of-the-mill actor who’d done a little bit of good theatre work in New York, and who’d done quite a lot of television work in LA, and again a little bit of decent film work, so that he had an okay apartment with a pool and a decent used car and then his world exploded – and now he was a middle-aged man with two homes and nice cars and expectations and responsibilities.  People he employed.  People who depended on him to do good work.  The constant threat that the new project wouldn’t be as good as the last, and so the funding for the film would dry up, or that the series would be cancelled, or that his character would be killed off, and then he’d be yet another fifty-plus unemployed actor living off his bank account with two mortgages to pay. 

            Yet surely if it really was that he was never home, wouldn’t he have heard more about it from Robin?  Would it really have just come at him, out of the blue?  He didn’t think so.  No, he was pretty sure there was something else, something he was missing, something Hugh wasn’t telling him.  He paused the show for a moment in order to make himself a pot of coffee – he really did need to get serious about working on the vocal score – and then he thought, fuck, and he grabbed a beer from the fridge instead.  He was working with a vocal coach to prepare for the role, so it didn’t really matter that he’d be drinking something cold.  He had no intentions of singing full voice at home, even if the house were empty.  For one thing, he thought, as he sat back down on his battered old sofa that Clélie kept trying to throw out, the stupid dog would sing with him – and he bent over and gave her furry head a scratch before he picked up his laptop and unpaused the episode.  Her tail thumped lazily against the rug as in acknowledgement, and so he was distracted, as he always was, by the dog, and the first rumble of thunder outside his still-open window, and the sound of a car – probably Clélie’s – coming up the drive, and then he was watching his final scene, where he was sitting in his chambers with Hugh, and he watched that younger, more handsome version of himself look down at something towards the floor and then look up –

 He closed the laptop without even shutting it down, and he set it on the coffee table, and he didn’t even realise he was weeping until he saw the tears on his hands, which were in his lap and shaking. 

            It was only two minutes, maybe three, of screen time, in an episode that wasn’t really about his character, or Hugh’s, and yet Robin had seen it, and had called Hugh, and had asked to see him.  And Hugh – Hugh was going to talk to his son, had maybe already talked to his son, behind his back, before he’d even realised what this was about.

            He heard the door open, and Clélie called, “Jonno?  Can you give us a hand?”

            “Okay,” he answered. 

            He went into the powder room off his office, and he washed and dried his face and his hands, and he went back into his office to close the window, and then he walked out to the kitchen, and went out to the car to help Kai unload the groceries.

            Two weeks.  He had two weeks.  Then Hugh would take Robin to Coney Island, and his world would fall apart.

 

 

 

            He’d gone up to Robin’s room, after Robin had come home from the movies, and he’d given his permission for Robin to go to Coney Island with Hugh, and instead of finding his usually sweet-natured and considerate child, he’d found this sullen, angry, and – bitter? – teenager.  It had taken him completely by surprise, even though, he realised, he should have known.  It only confirmed his fears, and he left his son’s room angry and upset.

            He retreated to his office, where he sat at his desk and stared out the window.  His thoughts were chaotic and circular.  He couldn’t keep his mind off the cell phone in his desk drawer, but Hugh was in the middle of his show.  And what would be the point of confronting Hugh with this, really?  Robin had contacted Hugh.  He’d seen those three minutes, he’d jumped to his own conclusions – and whatever they were, they had clearly upset him – and he’d contacted Hugh with his need for answers.  What Hugh had told him – or hadn’t told him – hadn’t helped; Robin was obviously angry, obviously upset.  And it was important enough to Robin that he would go to an amusement park, a place he normally avoided like the plague, to establish a relationship with his godfather.

            Whatever Robin had decided, Hugh had lied to him.  It wasn’t the first time Hugh had lied to him in their relationship.  Hugh’s brilliance as an actor meant he could turn it off and on at will – and lying was simply another skin Hugh pulled on, like a chameleon or something.  Jonathan didn’t want to go down the path of all the instances of Hugh’s lying – for the most part, they’d been put to rest, although he could still drag up hurt feelings over Hugh’s marriage to Carrie Beck in the middle of a fight.  Not that it wasn’t ludicrous, because he’d been married when he’d met Hugh; he’d been married when he’d fallen in love with Hugh, and he was still married even as he’d had a twenty-year relationship with Hugh.  Still, lying wasn’t something that was part of his inner nature; it wasn’t part of the _acting_ part of him the way it was with Hugh.  Maybe because he’d come to acting through music first – he didn’t know.  He didn’t care.  Hugh had lied to him about his own child.  He didn’t know what to do.

            “Jon?” Clélie was at the door.

            “Yeah?” he said.  He didn’t turn around.

            “What’s going on?”

            “Nothing,” he said, even as he knew Clélie wouldn’t believe him.  Shit, he didn’t believe himself.

            She came into the room, and walked up to him, and as he felt her hand on his arm, he flinched.  Robin wouldn’t look at him.  If Robin had decided he’d betrayed his mother – as indeed, he thought, he had –

            He thought, I am fifty-six years old, and for the first time in my life I have to face the reality of my own selfishness. 

            “Jonathan,” Clélie said again.  “What’s wrong?”

            “I guess,” he said, and oh, here it was, he’d never been an intrinsic liar but he was certainly going to start lying now, “I didn’t expect that Robin’s transformation into a teenager would be so sudden.  And that I’d become a target.”

            “Oh,” Clélie said.  “Does this have something to do with him wanting to contact Hugh?”

            He wondered if he was having a heart attack.  His chest tightened and it felt as if he were straining to breathe.

            “He said, if I were, _like, home,_ maybe he wouldn’t be interested in his godfather,” Jonathan replied.  “And I got angry with him.”

            She rested her hand on his arm again, and this time he was able to keep from flinching away from her.  It was Hugh he needed right now, even if Hugh had lied to him and would continue to lie to him.

            “You’ll be on hiatus soon, won’t you?” Clélie came beside him and she rested her head against him.  “He doesn’t understand, Jonno.  How could he?  We’ve given him everything and the price of that is we’re never home.”

            How like Clélie to include herself in that equation. 

            “I guess I thought, because Kai has fought us about everything, even when he was a baby he was fighting for something, that Kai would be the teenager that everyone warned us about.  It never occurred to me that Robin could find something to be so angry about.  How did I not know he was so angry?”

            “And maybe he’ll be fine tomorrow,” Clélie said reassuringly.  “They get moody.  One minute the world is ending, the next minute he’s in love with Katie.”

            “You had brothers,” he said, “so I guess you have more experience.  I remember Natty cried a lot.  But then I went away to school, and – if Mom is to be believed – I missed the worst of it.  And I don’t really remember how I was as a teenager.”

            “You were the perfect child,” Clélie said, laughing, “again, if your mother is to be believed.”

            He felt a little lightening of the tightness in his chest, and he looked down at Clélie, and he rolled his eyes for her benefit.

            “I guess I should be surprised that Natty doesn’t hate me,” he said.

            “No one hates you, Jon,” Clélie replied, and she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him.  “Not even your moody son.”

            He thought, You will, when Hugh tells Robin what I think he is going to tell him, and Robin tells you.  And then he thought, I’m so sorry, so very sorry.

 

           

           

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin refuses to go to Sunday school, and Kai has a chance to become the good child for once.

Chapter Seven

 

 

 

 

            In the morning was Sunday school – Robin was in the confirmation class – and Robin refused to go.

            Kai sat at the table in the breakfast nook, and watched in admiration as his brother transformed from sweet, perfect Robin into a sullen, sarcastic, stubborn teenager.

            “What do you mean, you’re not going?” His dad was already on his third cup of coffee – Kai had been counting – which usually meant he’d had a fight with Mom or there was some sort of work-related problem with one of his shows.

            “Just what I said,” Robin answered.  He really wasn’t eating; just moving the fork around his scrambled eggs.  “I’m not going.”

            “Is there a problem at the shul?” Dad had fixed his icy stare at Robin – something that always made Robin give in – and yet Robin wasn’t even paying attention to him.

            Robin shrugged his shoulders.  “I don’t know,” he said.  He sounded completely unconcerned.

            “We have the Ellis Island project,” Kai said.  “We’re supposed to be working on that.”

            The Ellis Island project was the big project the school did with the older kids, the ones who were pre and post- bar and bat mitzvah.  They were all using the Ellis Island website to locate when their individual family members had come over from wherever they’d originated, and then they were doing a huge genealogical project and presentation for the congregation.

            Robin rolled his eyes.  “We’re not even Jewish,” he said, echoing what Kai had reminded him before.  “The whole thing is stupid.  And the Weir family came here before freaking Ellis Island.”

            Kai waited for his father to implode.  It didn’t happen very often.  His dad was a pretty easy-going guy; it was Mom who had the temper in the family.  When his dad went it was usually because of something Kai had done, like the fight they’d had on the way back from services.

            “Robert,” Mom said, and Kai glanced down at his plate.

            “What?” Robin didn’t even look up.

            Dad, Kai saw, had finally had enough.  “If you think,” he began, “you’re going to speak in that tone of voice to your mother, you had better think again.  You are going to Sunday school, and then, you are coming straight home because you are grounded for the rest of this week.”

            “Jonathan,” Mom said, and then she stopped.  “Robert, your father and I made a commitment to raise you boys understanding both our heritages.  You agreed to that commitment when you had your bar mitzvah.”

            “When you forced me to have a bar mitzvah, you mean,” Robin said, and he stood up.

            “Where the hell do you think you are going?” Dad stood up as well.

            “I don’t know,” Robin said dramatically, “since _hell_ is where I already am.”

            Kai tried to keep a straight face.  He said, “I thought Jews didn’t believe in hell,” and Mom said,

            “Kai Campbell, don’t you dare start.”  She turned to Robin.  “Sit back down, Robby, and finish your breakfast.”

            “I’m not hungry,” Robin said, and then, “and I don’t care, _Dad_ , if you ground me.  I’m still not going.”

            “Then you can finish your breakfast, Robert,” Dad said, “and you can go to your room.”

            “I’m finished with breakfast,” Robin answered defiantly, and he took his plate to the kitchen.

            Kai tried not to look at either of his parents.  His father sat down again, and reached for his mug of coffee.  Kai watched with fascination as his father’s hand shook so hard that the coffee spilled.

            “Fuck,” his father muttered.

            “Jonathan,” Mom said.  “I’ll take care of it.  And maybe,” Kai watched as she reached out and held Dad’s hand, “you’ve had enough coffee this morning.”

            “Yeah, okay.”  His dad let Mom hold his hand, and then she stood up and went to get a dish towel.

            “Can I be excused?” Kai asked quietly.  It was a novel experience, being the good one for a change.

            “Sure.”  His dad was just sitting there, and Kai felt a little sorry for him.

            He stood up and took his dishes – and the ones that Robin had left – and went into the kitchen.  Mom said, dishtowel in hand,

            “Do you know what’s going on with your brother?”

            Kai hesitated and then he said, “No.  He was okay yesterday.”

            “Is he in trouble at school?”

            “No,” Kai said.  The idea of Robin in trouble at school was insane.

            “Is he having a problem with Justin or Katie?”

            “I don’t know,” Kai said.  “I don’t, like, hang with his friends.”

            “I know you don’t, Kai,” Mom said.  “But if you can think of something, or if you find something out, please tell me, okay?  Your father’s really upset about this.”

            “Sure,” Kai said.  What else could he say?

            “All right.  You’d better get ready, then.”

            He knew better than to say he didn’t want to go to Sunday school either, so he put his dishes in the dishwasher and went quickly up the stairs.  Robin had the door closed to his room and was listening – loudly – to his favourite CD from Within Temptation.  Kai banged on the door and when Robin didn’t answer, he just opened it – Robin was way too much of a good boy to even think about locking it.

            “Get out,” Robin said.  He was lying on his bed, playing his 3DS.

            “What’s _your_ problem?” Kai asked, standing in the doorway.

            “I don’t have a problem,” Robin said.  “Get out.”

            “What alien came and took my perfect brother?” Kai said, laughing. 

            “Shut up!” Robin shouted.  “Just shut up and get out!  I fucking hate you!”

            “Jesus,” Kai said.  “What the fuck did I ever do?”

            Before he could say anything else, Robin jumped up from the bed, flinging his 3DS down, and charged, pushing him into the door and then pushing him out.  He was so surprised he didn’t do anything at first, but then the famous temper that he’d inherited from their mother flared, and he pushed Robin back, and Robin banged his head against the door.  They stood there, glaring at each other, and Kai heard his mother calling from downstairs, and then the heavy tread of his father coming up the stairs, two at a time, it sounded like.  They were in so much trouble, Kai thought, and he was ready to back down, but then Robin leaned forward and punched him in the face.  That was when Dad reached the hallway, and he caught Kai as he fell back, and Robin went back into this room and slammed the door, and this time, he locked it.

            Kai was more shocked than hurt, and he stepped away from his father.

            “You’d better put some ice on that eye,” Dad said.

            “It’s all right,” Kai said.  He was glad his brother punched like a girl.

            “What happened?” Mom was in the hall, now.

            “Robin threw a punch at Kai,” Dad said.  “Robert, open the door.”

            “I’m okay, Dad, really,” Kai said.  “He didn’t really hurt me – and I, uh, I kind of deserved it.”

            “Oh?” His father hadn’t been looking at him, and now he did.  “What do you mean, kind of?”

            “I was just teasing him a little,” Kai said.  He felt miserable, because he was sure he could hear that Robin was crying.

            His father sighed.  “Get yourself ready for Sunday school,” he said, finally.  “Clélie, I’ll drive him.  I don’t think Robin really needs to hear from me right now.”

            “Okay,” Kai said, and he quickly disappeared into his room.

            He grabbed his _kippah_ and his folder, and then he followed his father down the stairs.

            He said as they entered the garage, “I really didn’t say much, Dad.  I only said maybe aliens had taken my perfect brother.  It was supposed to be a joke.  He was supposed to laugh.”

            “Get in the car,” Dad said.

            “I’m sorry,” Kai said as he climbed into the front seat of his dad’s Beemer.

            “It’s okay,” Dad said, waiting for him to put his seatbelt on before he started the car.  “I don’t know what’s gotten into Robin, but I think you’d better give him a wide berth for now.”

            “Yeah,” Kai agreed.  “Good thing he’s a musician and not a boxer.”

            His dad said, “He’ll bulk up, so I wouldn’t count on that for too long.”

            “He wouldn’t want to hurt his hands,” Kai said, and then thought perhaps he should shut up.  It was rare when he wasn’t the one who was fighting with Dad.

            “He hasn’t told you what’s bothering him?” Dad asked.

            Kai sighed.  “No, I already told Mom that,” he answered.  “He doesn’t usually talk to me.  And I don’t hang with him.  He wouldn’t want me to.”

            “I know,” Dad said.  “I just wish….”

            His father didn’t finish the statement, and Kai looked out the window.  It was about a thirty minute drive to Holbrook, and he and his father were quiet for the rest of the trip.  His father pulled the car into the parking lot of the synagogue, and said, as Kai got out,

            “Call me on your cell when you’re done.”

            “Yeah,” Kai said.

            “Try to have a good time, okay?” his father asked.  “And don’t worry about Robby.  We’ll figure something out.”

            “Yeah,” Kai repeated.

            “Okay,” Dad said.  “See you.”

            Kai watched his father pull out of the parking lot and drive away.  He wondered if his dad was going home, or if he just hung out in Holbrook while he waited for Sunday school to be finished.  Then he shrugged his shoulders, because it really didn’t matter all that much, and he saw his friends Noah and Nico, and he walked over to them, and they all went into the synagogue together.

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hugh responds to Robin's last email. On the advice of his friend Elana from shul, Robin calls Rabbi Nomi and sets up an appointment to talk.

Chapter Eight

 

 

 

            Robin knew his mother was standing outside the door, trying to decide whether to force the issue of its being locked, and he stopped crying.  His mother always kept a box of tissues in their rooms, and he grabbed one and blew his nose, and then he wiped his eyes on his sleeve.  He heard the car leave the driveway, Kai and his dad leaving for shul without him.  The whole thing was so stupid because he actually liked going to shul, and he was enjoying the Ellis Island Project – his grandmother’s family, the Brauns, had come from Germany and Poland through Ellis Island – and no one had _forced_ him to have a bar mitzvah.

            But there was a reason why his father had chosen the temple in Holbrook for them to go to, and he was sure it wasn’t because, as with most Reform temples, it accepted kids from mixed marriages, and it considered that children of a Jewish father were still Jews.  It was because this particular temple was open to Jews who were also gay, and it advertised itself as open to the LGBT community.  There was another Reform temple nearby besides the one in Holbrook, and they didn’t go to that one.  The one they went to – the rabbi had even talked about gay marriage – marriage equality, she called it.

            “Robin?” his mother said.

            Why hadn’t his father divorced his mother and married his Uncle Hugh, if it was so important to him? 

            “Open the door,” she said.

            Why did his father have to be a _cheat_?  What was wrong with his mother?  She was beautiful – she didn’t look anywhere near her real age.  How could anyone – any guy – be attracted to Uncle Hugh?  He was _old_ – way older than his father – and he guessed he was good-looking, in that way that actors who were British were good-looking – what was that word, he wondered, and then he remembered, _distinguished_ , that’s what it was – but his mom –

            “Robin, this is the last time I’m going to ask you,” she said.  “I am perfectly capable of picking the lock.  I’m sure you know that.”

            “I don’t want to talk to you,” Robin said.  “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

            “Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to,” his mother replied.  “You’ve upset your father very much.  I’m surprised at you, Robin, I really am.”

            He thought viciously, Not as surprised as you’re going to be, but then he remembered that he’d told Hugh he wouldn’t tell anyone.  He’d already broken that promise once, by telling Justin and Katie.  No way he was going to tell his mom.  Let Dad do that, he thought.  Let Dad tell her that he was sleeping with another man.

            “I’m not sorry,” Robin said.  “I hate him.”

            “Your father has never done anything ever that would deserve that,” his mother said.  “He loves you.  He works hard to support you.  Just what has gotten into you?”

            “Nothing,” Robin answered.  He hated the fact that he sounded just like a little kid.  “He’s a hypocrite.”

            He could hear his mother sigh.  “And of course you will never, ever be a hypocrite,” she said.  “Something we all believed when we were fourteen.”  She paused and then she said, “Unlock the door, Robin.  I won’t make you talk to me.  I certainly hope that this business of meeting with your Uncle Hugh resolves whatever it is that’s riled you up.”

            Robin got up from the bed and unlocked the door.  He stood next to the door for a minute, wishing that he could open it and let his mother hug him.  But if he did that he might cry, and then he would tell her, and he was not ever going to be the one to tell.

            “What your father said, stands,” she continued.  “You are grounded for this week.”

            “Okay,” he said.  He knew he should be like Kai, and say he didn’t care, but the truth was, he did care.  And if he was going to keep all of this a secret until he could talk to Hugh in person, at freaking Coney Island, then he needed to get a grip on himself, because it was going to be a very long two weeks.  He could tell she was still at the door.  “Mom?” he said.

            “Yes, Robby?”

            “I’m sorry,” he said. 

            “I’m not the one you should be apologising to,” his mother replied.  “But, thank you.”

            He heard her walk away.  He sat down on the bed.  He thought about texting Katie, but he was afraid that the topic of conversation would be his father and Hugh.  There had to be something that he could do while he was waiting for the two weeks to pass, anything, because otherwise, he was just going to explode.  Then he remembered the look on Kai’s face when he punched him and he started to laugh.  Maybe, he thought, I am just completely out of my fucking mind.  He picked up his 3DS, and plunged back into the world of the game.

 

 

 

            He must have fallen asleep, because he heard the car doors slam, and then he heard the kitchen door open, and his father and Kai speaking.  He missed his friends at shul, and he probably should text them, to apologise and to find out what he needed to do next on their project.  He heard his phone vibrate, and he checked it – there were three text messages from Katie, one from Justin, one from Elana at shul, and an email from Uncle Hugh.  He read the one from Elana first, and was relieved that she wasn’t mad that he hadn’t shown up.  He texted her back, saying he was still sick, and asking her what he needed to do.  He scrolled through the messages from Katie, all of which didn’t really say anything at all, and the one message from Justin, which asked about homework for world history.

            He didn’t necessarily want to read the email from Uncle Hugh, but he thought he’d better, just in case his father had called and complained about his behaviour.  _My dear Robin,_ it read, _you may call me Uncle Hugh or Hugh, whichever you prefer.  My parents used to call me Hughie, but I am really too old to be called that now, I think, although my ex-wife used to call me that sometimes.  Somehow Hughie sounds better if it’s said with a Scottish burr.  Anyway, I am sure you are still “freaked out,” as you say, and I am not sure what I can do – if anything – to comfort you._   _You are probably very angry with both of us and rightfully so.  The only thing I can say is that your father indeed loves you and your brother and your mother very much.  I know that at your age you probably believe that it is impossible to love your mother and me at the same time, but the human heart has a great capacity for love – and your father has an enormous heart.  It is, I think, his greatest gift, among the many that he has.  By now you know that I have spoken to your father and your parents have given me permission to take you to_ _Coney Island_ _.  I am sorry that it cannot be any earlier than a fortnight from now, the Friday after next, but I am closing out “The Tempest” here and we simply cannot have Prospero vanish in the middle of the run.  I think you and your brother might like this version of “The Tempest.”  There are great special effects and the fellow who is playing my Ariel is a genius.  I know you are a musician like your father, and you may be interested to know that Trefor, the fellow playing Ariel, composed all the music for the songs himself.  He is another one of those incredibly gifted actors who seems to be able to do everything.  Your father told me you didn’t much care for amusement parks, so I’m sorry that I chose_ _Coney Island_ _, but it will be fun all the same, the Aquarium is there, and the beach, and there are games to play.  They haven’t brought the carousel back yet but they are planning to, I heard.  And you could always get your fortune told.  Anyway, I’ve got to run.  Try not to let this take over your life.  I know, easy enough for me to say, I reckon.  Love, Hugh._

            Robin read the email a second time, and then a third.  Then he hit reply and wrote, before he started to think and would stop himself, _Uncle Hugh – I don’t think I should call you by your first name – you’re right I’m mad.  I’m mad that my mom is the one who is going to be hurt.  What did she do to deserve Dad cheating on her?  My mom is a good person.  And she has always loved my dad – that’s what she says.  It will be hard for me cause 2 weeks is a long time.  And I don’t have anyone to talk to.  I don’t really care about your stupid play.  I just care about what this has done to my family.  You don’t know me at all so how can you write love? Robin._

He went back and answered all of Katie’s texts – she had a crush on this kid called Conor who was a real jerk – and then he texted Justin about their homework.  He decided, since it was Sunday, after all, he’d better do his stupid homework, and he glanced at his game to make sure he’d shut it off before he’d fallen asleep, and  stood up and stretched, and then he went over to his desk and sat down.  He booted up his laptop and went to the online site where his world history homework was and he started answering the questions.

The questions were fairly easy, but interesting, and he was engrossed in one about taxation and the Domesday Book, when his phone vibrated.  He glanced at it; it was a new text from Elana, and he read it quickly, _K said_ _ur_ _not sick.  U had a fight?  Whats up?_   He texted, _No fight. Family._    And she replied, _Talk to Rabbi Nomi.  She’s awesome._   Whatever, Robin thought, but he typed, _did u?_ and Elana replied, _Yes._

He had Rabbi Nomi’s cell phone number, they all did, the upper level students.  She’d made sure that she’d talked to every one in the confirmation class, but at that time, Robin had thought he was doing okay, for fourteen.  It’s true, he wasn’t an athlete and he didn’t have a lot of friends, but he got good grades and he was in band and until last week he’d thought he was good.  Nobody was beating him up at school.  His parents weren’t fighting.  He knew a lot of Hollywood-type kids, friends and acquaintances of both his parents, and kids whose parents were musicians, friends of his uncles Joe and Iain, and some of those kids – well, if you were on heroin at fourteen….

He finished his world history homework, and then he scrolled through the contacts list on his phone.  There it was – Rabbi Nomi Lazar.  He called the number.

“Shalom!”

Robin had expected to get her voice mail.

“Shalom – who is this?”  Rabbi Nomi was English and Israeli; her accent was fascinating.

“It’s Robin,” he said.  “Robin Weir.”

“Oh, yes, Robin,” she said.  “We missed you this morning.  Your brother said you were sick.”

“I had strep this week,” Robin answered.  “But I was in school Friday.”

“Still, that’s a tough illness to get rid of,” Rabbi Nomi said.  “It was probably a good idea to stay home.”

Robin didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing, and the silence grew between them until Robin just wanted to end the call.

“Perhaps, Robin,” Rabbi Nomi said, finally, “there was something you wanted to talk about?”

He nodded, and then realised of course that he had to say something.  “Yeah,” he said.

“Maybe it’s something you’d rather talk about in person?”

“Yeah, I mean, yes, Rabbi,” he stammered.  “But I don’t know how I’d get to Holbrook.”

“I see,” Rabbi Nomi said.  “This is something that has to do with your parents, perhaps?”

“Yes,” Robin said.  “How did you know?”

“Well,” Rabbi Nomi said, “I’ve been around the block a bit, you know.  And you don’t want one of them to drive you.”

“Oh.” Robin felt stupid.

“I could meet you somewhere closer to where you live,” Rabbi Nomi offered.

“I could probably get to Holbrook,” Robin said, thinking.  “I could tell my Uncle Joe that I had to go to the bookstore for a school project.  He’d take me if I told him that.  And we could meet in the café.”

“Are you sure?” Rabbi Nomi asked.

“Yes,” Robin said, “I’m sure.”

“What day would be good for you?”

“Tomorrow?” Robin asked hesitantly.

“Robin,” Rabbi Nomi said, concerned, “is this a family emergency of some sort?”

“It is for me,” Robin said.  “But, like, because of who my parents are….”

“Yes, I understand,” Rabbi Nomi said.  “I can do Tuesday at four.  Could you be there then, at the bookstore café?  And what will you do about your uncle?  Won’t he want to stay with you?”

“I could figure something out,” Robin said.  “Most people don’t know whose kid I am.  I can get Uncle Joe to drop me off, or something.”

“Well,” Rabbi Nomi said, “you have my cell phone number, in case something comes up.”

“Yes,” Robin said.

“Robin?”  
            “Yeah?”

“I’m glad you felt you could call me,” Rabbi Nomi said.  “I will do my best to help you.”

“Okay,” Robin said.  “Thanks.”

“Shalom,” Rabbi Nomi said, and she hung up.

Robin texted a quick thank you to Elana, and then he decided maybe he should go apologise to Kai and his father, just to keep the peace.  He could keep the peace for two days.  He knew he could.

 

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hugh is afraid that Robin will tell someone before he speaks to either Jonathan or the lad, so he goes to see his daughter Elspeth for advice.

Chapter Nine

 

 

 

            He’d sent the lad another email, Sunday morning, in answer to his last, and hoped that it would be somehow reassuring for Robin, to know that he would continue to talk to him all the way up until he arrived.  His granddaughters – his son David’s children – were Robin’s age and he hoped he didn’t sound too old and stupid to the lad.  He knew he probably shouldn’t have said anything about Jonathan at all to Robin, but he could well imagine Jonathan’s hurt in the face of his oldest’s anger.  Jonathan had never done well with anger; it made him anxious; it made him retreat into sullen silence; once or twice, in the middle of a blazing row – he, Hugh, had a prodigious temper, a legacy, perhaps, from his drunken father – it had made him weep.  He wanted the lad to understand that Jonathan’s ability to love two completely different people as much as he loved his wife and Hugh – that that was an accomplishment, that it was amazing.  That it wasn’t tawdry.  That Jonno wasn’t a bad man for loving Clélie and himself – he was a courageous man, a giving man.

            He’d gotten together with Barrie for a late lunch and a photo op; then it was time to go to the theatre and prepare for the show.  He loved this play – he’d wanted to do the trilogy in rep, that’s what he truly wanted to do – but he’d only gotten together this production of _Tempest_ , with the promise of _A Winter’s Tale_ down the road.  He still thought it would be brilliant to play all three – and then he thought, wouldn’t that be something if he could get Jonno to agree to do it with him.  Jonno would be a marvelous Bottom or Peter Quince; he would be perfect as Ariel, even though Ariel was often portrayed by a youngster; and lastly he would be Polixenes to his Leontes.  Well, it was truly unlikely, though – Jonno was too busy to take a year or two off to do three Shakespeare plays, and he knew that Jonno hadn’t done any Shakespeare at all since he’d been a kid in his twenties.

            Afterwards, still enjoying the glow of a show well done, he’d glanced at his mobile on the way home to see that there’d been yet another email from Robin.  He put off reading it until he’d actually gotten himself settled, until he was showered and had had a snack and was in his robe and ready for bed.  Then he sat in his study and answered a few of his other emails, sent a tweet out of the photo of himself and Barrie, the silly girl, and, sighing, read the brief message from his godson.

            Well.  He should have expected it.  He should have remembered that the lad was only fourteen.  Fourteen, the same age as Charlotte.  He couldn’t imagine how Charlotte and Immy would handle the news of their parents’ divorce, or that their father was seeing someone else – not that he could imagine David ever being the hopeless shite that he was.  David had been this age when he’d split with Barbara.  Of course Robin was angry.  Of course he wouldn’t see that his father’s enormous capacity for love was his gift – all he would see, in the black and white of adolescence, was that his father was a cheat.  A queer and a cheat.

            Dear God.  What was he going to do?  The child would explode before he could get to him.  And he couldn’t let Jonno know over the phone that he’d already confessed about their relationship to the lad.  It really was too bad, he thought, that they’d done away with the Concord.  The idea of flying to New York from London and back in one day had been doable, once.  Now it took so bloody long to fly anywhere because of all the fucking security.

            It was close to one, and his brain was simply shutting down.  He thought, I am far too old for this fucking mess.  What a stupid, sorry old git he was.

            He wrote, _Robin, I have known you since the very hour you were born, so I am sorry if you think that I don’t know you well enough to love you.  I know you are angry.  Please try not to think of your father as being a cheat.  Please, I encourage you to blame this all on me.  Your father will be devastated by this.  I am a selfish old man and I love your father very much and have always been unwilling to give him up.  So please blame me and not him.  And at some point you will see that it is no disparagement of your mother at all.  Your mother is a lovely person and has always been.  Please try to keep things together.  You can write me or text me as often as you need to.  I wish that I could just drop the bloody play and come tomorrow, but I can’t.  I will see you on Friday next.  Love, Hugh._

            He went to bed, and dreamt that Jonno was missing, and he searched throughout a primeval forest, all black branches and howling wind, to find him, but in the end, he was lost.

           

 

 

 

 

            Monday, the theatre was dark, and he was able to sleep in a bit.  He puttered around his flat a little, luxuriating in several cups of tea, catching up to his correspondence and his voice mails, and then actually being able to go out into the garden for an hour and read a few pages of the newest Louise Penny that he’d been anxiously awaiting.  The problem of Robin, however, angry and alone, taking out his frustration on his father, wouldn’t leave him alone.  Of all the people in the world that he could speak to about this, there was only one, and that was his daughter Elspeth, who was perhaps one of the wisest people he’d ever known.  She’d been so young when he and Barbara had divorced that her brilliance as a human being had absolutely nothing at all to do with him – Barbara had raised her entirely on her own, with the help of Barbara’s parents, his in-laws, who had been lovely people in their own right.  It wasn’t that he had abandoned Bethie and Dai – no, it was that he was living in LA, and working on the show, and he’d been discovered, hadn’t he, by America and Americans, and so there was film work, and the ubiquitous mini-series (several of them), and he ended up seeing his children only a few weeks a year, at the Christmas and summer holidays.

            He hoped he’d find Bethie at home; she worked part-time, now that she had Sandy, and he rang her, trying not to be too dreadfully melodramatic, but truly hoping he wouldn’t get her voice mail.

            “Elspeth Ross,” she said, and he breathed a sigh of relief.  She’d kept her own name for business purposes, even though Richard had a perfectly good Scots name of his own:  Kerr.

            “Bethie,” Hugh said, “have I called you at a bad time?”

            He could hear Sandy grizzling in the background.

            “Da,” Bethie said happily – God bless Barbara, he thought, that she’d done absolutely nothing to make him the villain in their break-up, even though he really had been –“I was just thinking about you.”

            “Aye?” he said.  “What have I done now?”  He laughed.

            “Don’t be stupid, Da, really,” Bethie replied.  “No, Richard and I thought you might like to come over for dinner soon, after the show is over, and see the babby.  He’s added some new words – he says bird now, and doggie.”

            “I’d love to,” Hugh said.  “You just let me know when it will be good for you and Richard.  I’m flying to New York, though, Tuesday next, and will be there for about five or six days, to wrap up bringing the show there.”

            “Have you bought the flat, then?” Bethie asked.

            “Yes, didn’t I tell you?  Wait until you see it, it’s lovely, near the park, and there’s a playground there, for Sandy, and a carousel, and a zoo.”

            “You should send me pictures, Da,” Bethie said.

            “I will,” he promised.  “It’s got a lovely garden in the back, too.”

            “I’ve just been so used to you being here, though,” Bethie said.  “I’d hoped you’d settle down here.”

            He was quiet and then he said, “Are you busy?  Can I come round and chat?  I’d really like a bit of your special wisdom on something.”

            She laughed.  “Oh, aye, I’m wise, that,” she said.  “Now, you mean?  I’ve the day off, Da, I’ll fix you a sandwich.  You’re dark today, aren’t you?”

            “Aye,” he said.  “I’ll be over as soon as I clean up, then, all right, darling?”

            “Good,” Bethie said.  “I’ll see you in a mo, then.”

            He rang off, and went to change.

 

 

            Richard’s firm was, of course, in Edinburgh, and he and Bethie had a corporate flat while they were in London.  Originally only supposed to be in London for a year, Richard had done some sort of organizational miracle for his firm, and that year had been extended to three.  The flat had become theirs, and even moreso now that they had his little namesake (Hugh Alexander) toddling around.

            Hugh rang the bell of the flat, and then took the lift up; Bethie met him at the door, a very messy Sandy in her arms.

            “Look, it’s Gran’da,” Bethie said to the child, and he, as with most babies his age, turned his face into her shoulder.  “It’s nothing fancy,” Bethie said as he entered her flat, “just a sandwich.  I hope that’s good with you, Da.”

            “It’s fine, Bethie, it’s fine,” he answered soothingly, “I remember what it’s like to have a babby.  What can I do to help?”

            “Just sit,” Bethie said, “I’ve put the kettle on, and I’ll put Sandy in his chair, and all will be good.  The Goddess of Wisdom is ready to listen.”

            He laughed.  “Athena herself, eh?” he said.  “We should have named you Sophie.”

            “Please,” Bethie said, laying out the table, and pouring the hot water into the teapot to steep, “I am _so_ glad, Da, that you and Mum did not name me Sophie.  If I meet one more corporate wife named Sophie I shall scream.”

            “Well, once again, you can thank your mother for that,” Hugh said, “as I had absolutely nothing to do with it.  I’d wanted Fenella, but your mother said no.”

            “You did, never,” Bethie answered.  “You’re just trying to wind me up.  Here, drink your tea and tell me what the matter is.”

            Hugh took his mug and sipped his tea, strong, hot, and sweet, just the way he preferred it.  Bethie had made lovely sandwiches, and he took one and bit into it.  She was feeding Sandy quietly, waiting for him to gather his thoughts.

            “Elspeth,” he said.

            “Oh, dear,” she responded.  “This is likely to be serious, then.”

            “Aye.  I’m afraid so,” he said.

            She gave the baby a few crisps to munch on and turned her attention to him.  “What is it, Da?” she asked kindly.  “It’s not like you to be this upset.”

            He sighed.  “We don’t talk about this very much, Bethie,” he began.  “But we need to now.  It’s about Jonathan.”

            “Da,” Bethie said, and she reached out and took his hand.  “You never have to worry about talking to me about Jonathan.  Ever.  In fact, I wished we talked more about him.  He’s an important part of your life, Da.  You should be able to talk about him to me anytime you wish.  And, Da,” Bethie said, “you know that goes for Dai too.  We know that it’s difficult, because of Jonathan’s marriage.  But Dai and I both love him very much.  You do know that?  Da?”

            “I didn’t know how David felt about it,” Hugh said.  “I’m no good at this stuff, you know that.  But I did know I could talk to you.  It’s just that I never know, with Richard….”

            “Richard has never had an issue with you or Jonathan,” Bethie said firmly.  “Da, it’s not the 1960’s anymore.”

            “No,” Hugh answered, “it certainly isn’t.  I’ve been so looking forward to taking the play to New York, not just because it’s a strong play, but because it would give me an opportunity to be closer to Jonno again.  It’s difficult, having a long-distance relationship.  I know it was hard on you, giving up your work to come here for Richard, but it really was the smart thing to do, Bethie.  There’s no substitute for being with the person you love.  And I do love Jonathan, so very much.  I’ve missed him dreadfully, being here.”

            “I know, Da,” Bethie said.  “Is there a problem with Jonathan, then?”

            “The problem is with Jonno’s son, my godson,” Hugh explained.  “Robin.  He’s fourteen, the same age as Charlotte.”

            “That’s a terrible age,” Bethie said sympathetically.  “I am not looking forward to Sandy at fourteen.  I hated being fourteen.”

            “Aye, it is a difficult age, although it’s different, for boys,” Hugh agreed.  “The story is, as far as I can tell, that Robin, who is a nice lad, and has never given Jonno or Clélie any trouble – he’s a musician, like his father – is sick a good deal.  And he was sick last week, with a sore throat, and home from school.  And there was a marathon, apparently, of our show on the telly, and Robin’s uncle – one of Clélie’s brothers – made him watch it.  Both of Jonno’s lads, for whatever reason, don’t like the show.”

            “But it’s a great show!” Bethie interrupted.  “I loved being on it that one time.”

            Hugh smiled, and took another sip of his tea.  “You’re not eating, hen,” he said, “and the babby is decorating himself in crisps.”

            He finished his sandwich while Bethie tended to Sandy, and then said, taking the child onto his lap so Bethie could eat, “Anyway.  Robin watched the episode where Charles’s character nearly dies.  I think it was season six or seven.  And there’s a scene, towards the end of the episode, where Jonno and I are waiting to hear the news about Charles.  It’s about a three minute scene, all told.  I say something, low-key and off-topic, and then Jonno says something in the same vein; I say something again, and Jonathan looks down.  And then – and I couldn’t believe this, because I’ve not heard one word about this from anyone, ever – Jonathan looks up, at me – “  Hugh faltered.

            “And?” Bethie said.

            “Elspeth, you could see that he was in love with me,” Hugh said.  “It was in his face, the way he looked at me.  And I returned the look to him – and then rested my arm on his….And the lad, Robin, he saw this.  He sent me an email, asking if I was in love with his father.  Asking if his father was gay.”

            “What did you say?” Bethie scooped up the baby, who was nodding off.

            “What could I say?” Hugh answered.  “I went and watched the dvd.  How everyone has missed it is beyond me.  I wrote him an email and told him yes, that his father and I love each other very much, but that his father also loves his family.  I tried to explain that we are – or at least I am – bisexual, but, Bethie, he’s fourteen.  At fourteen you’re either straight or you’re gay.  I told him I would see him, when I come to New York.  I’ve offered to take him to an amusement park, so we can talk – “

            “You haven’t told Jonathan?”

            “No.  How can I tell him without being there?  I was going to meet him for lunch when I get in and speak to him then, but now…The lad is so angry, Beth, and hurt, and confused.  He’s called his father a cheater.  I’m worried, because it’s so bloody long before I get a chance to see him.”

            “Could Jonno fly here?” Beth asked.  “Would he come here?”

            “I’m not sure what he’s doing now, if he’s still working on his show,” Hugh answered.  “He was in Connecticut, over the weekend.”

            “Well, ask him,” Bethie suggested reasonably, “and then ask him to come.”

            “Won’t that make Clélie suspicious?” Hugh asked.  “Oh, it’s a great bloody mess I’ve made, Bethie.  Poor Jon.”

            “Daddy,” Bethie said, and she so very rarely called him “Daddy” anymore, “you must tell Jonathan that his son knows.  Whether you do it in person or you do it by mobile, you must tell him.  He needs to be prepared.  What if Robin tells his friends?”

            “He’s said he has no one to talk to,” Hugh answered.  “That’s part of why I’m so worried.  He won’t talk to his parents or his brother, I know him well enough to know that.  But if he’s got a mate, or a girlfriend….”

            “Let me put Sandy down for his nap,” Beth said.

            “Aye, I’ll put things away for you,” he replied.

            He did a bit of washing up, and put the other dishes in the dishwasher.  He thought about what Beth had said – that he should simply call Jonathan and tell him to come to London.  That it was an emergency.  Hell, he’d pay for it.  He could offer Jonathan the job of being his Ariel in New   York – he knew he’d turn it down – and say that his director wanted to meet him.  Or he could, he thought, simply tell the man the truth.  That what they’d worried about, all these years, was finally about to happen.  That the tightrope that Jonathan had spent almost twenty years walking was about to break.  The man deserved to be told the truth.  Bethie, as she always was, was right.

            “He’s asleep,” Bethie said, returning to the kitchen.  “Take your mug, Da, and come to the sitting room.”

            He poured himself another tea, adding the sugar to it, and then followed Bethie into the lovely little sitting room she and Richard had with a view of the Thames.  He stood for a minute at the window, gazing at the traffic on the river, and then sat down beside his daughter on their sofa.

            “You’re right, of course,” he said.  “Jonathan needs to be told, before the lad does something he might regret.  Oh, Beth.”

            “Daddy,” Bethie said, “what’s the worst thing that can happen?”

            “Besides Jonathan leaving me?” Hugh asked.

            Bethie said, “Da.  Jonathan will never leave you.  I’ve seen the two of you together, here, away from everyone else.  You are the love of his life, as he is yours.”

            “I do love you, you wonderful child,” he said.  “I don’t know how I managed to have such fantastic children.  I must write your mother yet another thank-you note.”

            “Please don’t,” Bethie said, wryly.  “I’ll never hear the end of it.”

            “Oh, aye, I know,” Hugh said, and he grinned.  Then he said, making his voice sound like a woman’s smoker’s voice, “Did you see what that great fooking git of a man did now, Elspeth?”

            Bethie laughed.  “Jonathan will be upset, of course he will, and he’ll be worried about his son.  But he won’t leave you, Da.”

            “Clélie,” Hugh said, “is quite another story.  You know, when I told your mother that I was seeing Jonathan, she didn’t even bat an eye.  You always did swing both ways, she said.  It didn’t bother her at all.  Of course, our marriage had been over for years, then, but I don’t think it would have bothered her.  It was my not taking her work as seriously as it deserved that bothered her, the idiot that I am.”

            “It would,” Bethie said, “be very hard to take.  She will think there is something wrong with her.  Women do, you know.  And she won’t buy that Jonathan could love two people at the same time.  I don’t know many women who would.  So the worst, I reckon, that could happen, is that Jonathan’s marriage will end.”

            It was a sobering thought.  “The poor wee bairn,” Hugh said.  “He has every right to be furious with me.”  He sighed.  “I will call Jonno today, before Robin has a chance to text his mates.  Thank you, my love, for listening to your old man.”

            “I’m sorry, Da,” Bethie said, walking him to the door.  “I hope that Jonathan can work things out with Robin.”

            Hugh smiled, and hugged his daughter, kissing her on the cheek.  “I hope so too, Bethie,” he agreed.  “I will let you know.  Kiss the namesake for me.”

            “Always,” Bethie said.

            She shut the door, and Hugh rode down the lift in silence.  He was not looking forward to telling Jonathan about Robin over the telephone. 

           

 

           


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hugh tells Jonathan that he told Robin the truth.

 

Chapter Ten

 

 

 

           

 

            Sunday evening things seemed to have settled down a bit, and Robin was at least civil when they had dinner, although perhaps that had more to do with the fact that Clélie had invited her brothers Joe and Iain and their wives and kids over.  He’d had a splitting headache by the time they’d gone to bed, and he’d taken one of his pain pills, and that had put him right to sleep, _Baruch HaShem_.

            In the morning was the usual chaos, getting the boys off to school, and Clélie and Maggie were off to yet another meeting in the city, and that had left him alone to work on his correspondence, and to read two scripts that Gail had asked him to read, for possible projects, before he had a meeting with his vocal coach in New Haven on _Man of La Mancha._

            He worried that he shouldn’t have grounded Robin, and then he worried that maybe they should have done more than just ground him, seeing as how he’d punched his brother, and then he wondered what Hugh was doing, on his day off.  He’d seen the latest picture of Hugh and his Miranda – and wasn’t Barrie such a silly and pretentious name? – and he sighed.  Hugh played the old goat so well, getting pictures in the paper and headlines accusing him of robbing the cradle.  He wondered if the girls knew he was just fooling around, putting on a show for them and for himself and for everyone else; if they were complicit in his little dramas.

            He wandered aimlessly around the house for a while, never really settling.  The thunderstorm of the day before had brought cooler weather in, and he put his jacket on and grabbed the leash and took the dog out for a run down the path to the river.  He was glad he’d taken the binoculars with him; there was a pair of golden eagles flying over the river, and he hoped they were a mating pair.  On the way back he stopped at the creek and watched a spotted turtle doing its crawling swim along the sandy bottom.  He remembered when he was a kid that catching a sun turtle – that’s what everyone had called them, back then, before he’d learned they were spotted turtles – was the highlight of each spring and summer.  He’d always kept turtles in a large aquarium in his room, spotted turtles and painted turtles and once, a hatchling snapping turtle.

            He found a stick and threw it for Sunny in the back yard for a while, and then he went round to the side of the house to the garden he’d made, with its flagstone wall and fish pond, hummingbird feeders and perennials that attracted butterflies, just starting to come up out of the ground, now that the bulbs were dying out.  He sat on the bench by the pond, watching the minnows and the tadpoles that were currently in residence in the pond.  He’d had koi in it, but after having lost most of them to marauding raccoons and great blue herons, he’d given up, and let nature take its course.  He’d bought minnows, to control the mosquito larvae, and then had delighted in the fact that brown toads and wood frogs and even a leopard frog or two used his pond to spawn.  The dog splashed into the pond to drink, scattering tadpoles and at least one frog – he’d heard it jump – and then she lay down next to his feet, watching for rabbits and squirrels. 

            She was a silly old dog, Sunny.  Robin had named her – he was too little to really explain why he’d chosen Sunny – and it did suit her.  She was bright, like most border collies, and had adapted well to being a family dog, and she had a genial, easy-going disposition.  She was slowing down a little bit, now that she was getting older, but could still be counted on to run around like crazy when you wanted her to, or, when you least expected it.  Clélie’s dog had been a rescued greyhound and she was much more sedate.  She would go outside to do her business, and occasionally she would deign to chase a ball, but for the most part she was content to inhabit whatever room Clélie – or, failing Clélie, Kai – was in.  Sunny thumped her tail at him, as if she knew he was thinking about her, and he bent down and scratched her silky head.  She acknowledged him by giving a little snort, but he knew she was really waiting for a squirrel to appear.  She was a kind dog, Sunny – she liked cats, and other dogs, and she even tried to play with the rabbits, rather than eat them – but she hated squirrels.

            He’d forgotten that he’d placed his cell phone in his pocket when he’d taken the dog for a walk – he didn’t usually take his phone, because coverage was spotty in the woods – and he just about jumped off the bench when it vibrated against his leg.  He took it out and said,

            “Hugh.”

            “Jonno, are you alone?” Hugh asked.

            “Yes,” he replied, “but I’m outside.  Let me go in the house. C’mon, Sunny,” he said to the dog, and she huffed at him.

            He clipped the leash to her collar, just in case she decided to run after a squirrel, and he headed back to the kitchen door. 

            “Clélie and Maggie are in the city again,” he said, “organising this benefit for Catholic Charities, and the boys are in school.”

            “Good,” Hugh said, “are you going inside?  Because I can barely hear you.”

            “Yes,” Jonathan answered, as he opened the kitchen door.  “Hang on; I’ve got to unleash the dog.”

            He put the phone down on the counter and bent down to unclip the lead.  He picked up the phone again and then hung the lead on the hook by the door.  Sunny was noisily drinking out of her water dish, and Sadie the greyhound clicked down the hall and into the kitchen to see what was going on.  He poured himself a cup of coffee, splashing some milk in, and then walked into his office and sat down.

            “I’m here,” he said to Hugh.

            “You’re in your office?” Hugh asked.

            “Yes,” Jonathan said.  “What is it?”

            “I’m afraid you’re not going to be very happy with me,” Hugh said, “but I had a chat with Bethie, and she told me that I should talk to you.”

            He sucked in his breath.  So Hugh was going to tell him, after all.  Then he thought, only because Bethie told him to, and he was very grateful to Bethie, and very glad indeed that Hugh had been confident that he could tell both his children, and their spouses, and his ex-wife, Barbara, and they’d never once had to worry about anyone ever saying anything out of turn.

            “This is about Robin?” he asked carefully.

            “Aye,” Hugh said.  “I don’t suppose you went and watched the episode, did you?”

            “I did,” Jonathan said.

            “You saw the scene, then,” Hugh said.

            “The one where I look at you adoringly?” Jonathan asked.  “Yes.”

            “The lad saw that scene and emailed me,” Hugh said quietly.  “He asked me if you loved me.  If you were gay.”

            “He actually wrote that in an email?” Jonathan said.

            “Do you want me to read to you what the lad wrote, Jonno?” Hugh asked.

            “Yes,” Jonathan said.  “I do, want you to read me the email that my son wrote.”

            “Okay, let me get it.”

            Jonathan could hear Hugh fumbling around, and he gazed out the window, his mind spinning with useless what-ifs.

            “Here it is,” Hugh said.  “He wrote, _And I don’t really know how to write this or what to do but I’m hoping you won’t get mad but that you’ll know I’m only fourteen and it really freaked me out.  At the end of the scene Dad is looking down at his boot and you say something to him and he looks up at you.  And you have to promise that you’ll never tell my dad I asked you this or my mom when you see us for Christmas but maybe when you come back to New York for your play you can like meet me somewhere at Starbucks or something for coffee and let me know because I haven’t been able to sleep since I saw the show.  Because I saw the look my dad gave you and it didn’t make any sense but I know my dad so are you sleeping with him and are the two of you like gay?_   And then, Jon, at the end of the email, he asks if you are in love with me.”

            Jonathan didn’t say anything, because he didn’t think he could breathe.  This was the second time he’d felt this way in a week, as if his lungs were closing up and a vise was tightening around his chest.  He knew it was just anxiety – he’d always had problems with anxiety, a stupid thing for an actor to have -- and this would give even the most placid person anxiety.

            “Jonno?  Are you still there?”  Hugh was sounding pretty anxious himself.

            “Yes,” Jonathan said, finding his voice.  “And what did you say, Hugh?  What did you tell him?”

            Hugh said, “I told him the truth, Jonathan.  How could I lie to your son, my godson?  I told him that we loved each other very much, that we had for years, but that you loved his mother and him and his brother as well.  And I tried to explain how it was just that you have this great big generous heart –“

            “Oh, fuck, please, Hugh,” Jonathan said.  “Surely you didn’t say that.”

            “I did say that, because it’s true, Jonathan, and you know it’s true,” Hugh answered, his voice taking on a stubborn tone.  “I told him that I was bisexual, not gay, and that you loved me and his mother.  And then I told him I would meet with him, as he’d asked, to talk about this.”

            “And you weren’t going to tell me this, Hugh, until Bethie said you had to?”

            “It’s just that I thought I might have a better chance at explaining to the lad in person,” Hugh said.  “But a fortnight is a long time to wait, and he’s so angry – I was afraid he was taking it out on you.  And I was afraid he might tell a mate, and then where would we be?”

            “Couldn’t you have just told him no, that he was mistaken?” Jonathan said.

            “Did you see the episode?” Hugh asked.  “Jonathan, did you actually see it?”

            “Yes.”

            “Then you already know the answer to that question,” Hugh replied.

            “I don’t suppose,” Jonathan said, and he couldn’t help the undercurrent of anger in his voice, “that Bethie had any words of wisdom as to how _I’m_ to handle this?”

            “I’m sorry, darling,” Hugh said.  “Please, Jonno.  I know you’ve always had me pegged as a liar, but I couldn’t tell the lad a lie – he knew what he saw.  I will see you the Tuesday I arrive and we’ll work it out.  I promise you we will.”

            “I’m supposed to be in LA then,” Jonathan said.

            “Oh, sweet Jesus, Jonno, don’t fucking go to LA,” Hugh said.  “Please stay in Connecticut until I can get there – or fly here tomorrow, Jonno, I’ll get you a ticket.  You can tell Clélie my director wants to test you for my Ariel in New York.”

            “I’m not flying to London, Hugh, because Robin would know why I was.  And I’m not going to leave him alone, so he can tell Clélie, when I’m not here.”

            “He won’t talk to Clélie, Jon,” Hugh said.  “He said he doesn’t want to talk to either one of you.  He wants to talk to me.”

            “He’s punched his brother in the nose,” Jonathan said.  “He’s refused to go to Sunday school.  He’s been rude to his mother, and angry and defiant with me.  He’s not going to last until he sees you.  I’ll have to talk to him.”

            “I don’t want you to talk to him, Jonno,” Hugh said.  “He won’t want to listen to you.  And he’ll hurt you, Jon.  He’s very angry.”

            “Of course he’s fucking angry!” Jonathan shouted.  “I’ve been fucking cheating on his mother and breaking the commandments for over twenty fucking years!”

            He could hear Hugh breathing on the other end of the phone.

            “Jonathan,” Hugh said.  “Please do not tell me that we are going through this _again_.”

            “It’s how he will see it, Hugh,” Jonathan said quietly.  “And it is the truth.  I’ve committed adultery, for most of my marriage.  It’s how Robin will see it, and it’s how Kai will see it, and it’s definitely how Clélie will see it.”

            “Should I have insisted you leave your family, then, Jon?” Hugh asked, and he could hear the pain in Hugh’s voice.  “I never wanted to ask that of you.  I never wanted you to lose your children, the way I lost mine.”

            “I know,” Jonathan said, “but I am going to lose mine anyway,” and he shut down the phone.

            He sat there, in his chair, staring out the window.  He would have liked to have just thrown himself on the floor, like some little kid, the way Kai used to when he was a toddler, and just weep.  But there were no tears now.  Just the bitter certainty that his family life was over, that he would not get through this unscathed.  That when all was said and done, Clélie would divorce him, and he would be seen as the villain by everyone (and rightfully so, he thought), and there would be no court in the world who would allow him access to his kids, not when he’d been fucking his son’s godfather for over twenty years.

            He felt strangely lightheaded, and when he stood up, because he didn’t know what else to do, and he couldn’t just sit there, he had that session with his vocal coach that he still had to go to; he swayed for just a moment, and then he fell, knocking his coffee cup off the desk and scaring the dog.  He didn’t feel himself hit the floor.

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin decides to skip school.

Chapter Eleven

 

 

 

             

            It was hard to avoid your friends, when they were in almost all of your classes.  The only class Katie wasn’t in was personal fitness, and that’s because those classes were separated by sex; otherwise, Katie and Justin were in every class on his schedule. 

            The morning had been a little strange; his mother and Maggie were rushing around, preparing to go into the city again for his mother’s big charity thing that she did every year, once she was on hiatus – that was normal.  Maggie had arrived at like six o’clock in the morning, just as he and Kai were fighting over the shower – they shared a bathroom – that whole fight was stupid, because Kai didn’t have school at the same time he did, and he could have ridden the bus or his bike to school, but that was another Weir family rule – kids were driven to school.  And it wasn’t really a fight, not this morning anyway; he still felt stupid for punching Kai in the face, and then he felt even more stupid when he’d realised that it hadn’t even hurt him.  How lame was that?

            But his dad, who usually at least had a piece of toast with them and a cup of coffee, when he was home, wasn’t even up when they’d had breakfast.  The good part of him wanted to ask his mother if his dad was okay, but then he felt the knot in his stomach and he was mad all over again, and he thought, I hope he isn’t okay, the asshole.

            So he was not really mad but not really himself when he got to school, and he still didn’t want to see Justin or Katie, because he knew that he shouldn’t have told them – hadn’t he promised Hugh that he wouldn’t talk to anyone until he met with Hugh at Coney Island – and because he didn’t want to see the pity or disgust or whatever on Justin’s face, because it was just _gross_ to think about what gay guys did to each other, and to think that his dad and Hugh….

            So he’d sat in sullen silence all throughout first period, which of course had to be geometry (and he was good in math, something about music and math, he’d heard, but he hated geometry and he hated Mr Dabrowski, his geometry teacher), and then he was silent again in English, which was second period, where they were reading _The Odyssey_ , which he loved, to the point where his teacher, Mrs Taraday, wanted to know what was wrong with him.

            “Nothing,” he answered, and he sounded to his own ears as if he’d transformed into Kai. 

            Mrs Taraday looked so shocked that he’d been rude to her – Robert Weir, Jonathan Weir and Clélie Campbell’s son – rude?  He thought, wait until you meet Kai Campbell Weir if you think I’m rude.  At that point it looked as if Mrs Taraday was going to say something to him, and he thought, go ahead, and then Katie raised her hand and asked a question about the sirens, and what maybe they could have been, if you thought about mythology as something that explained physical phenomena, and the teacher was so distracted by the _thoughtfulness_ of this question that it made Robin want to gag.  Then Katie threw a look his way, and he felt his phone vibrate against his leg, and he marveled how girls could sit there so sweet and innocent and yet text at the same time and not one teacher even knew.

            He made sure he left English right away, not waiting for either Katie or Justin, and then he ducked into the bathroom and read her text.  _We need 2 talk_ , it read, and he thought, not today.  He had to get through today.  He had promised himself he wouldn’t talk to them about it.  He would wait until he saw Rabbi Nomi tomorrow, and she would be able to tell him what he should do, how he could hang on while he was waiting for the Friday when Hugh would take him to Coney Island and explain all of this away.

            He washed his hands and ducked into world history at the last minute, getting a warning look from Mr Hamilton, and he slid into his desk, which of course was right next to Katie and Justin, and when Katie looked at him, he shook his head.  _Lunch_ , she mouthed at him, and he shook his head again.  He wouldn’t eat; he’d disappear into the library and hide in the stacks and eat his sandwich there.  (His mother and Maggie insisted he bring his freaking lunch to school, because school food was unhealthy.  He decided he was really tired of people interfering with his life, especially his family.)

            Mr Hamilton was droning on about the census in the Domesday Book, and how important it was to know who paid taxes and who didn’t, and the whole feudal system and how it was structured, and how it was a combination of economics and the Black Death that destroyed chivalry, and blah, blah, blah….when it suddenly occurred to him that he didn’t have to hide from Justin and Katie at lunch.  As with all the freshmen, they had first lunch, and with the crush of kids going one way to the cafeteria and the rest of the school going another way to classes, he could simply vanish completely.

            He could go home.  After all, home wasn’t really that far away.  He could walk it, and then he remembered that stupid kid, what was his name again, it was a really _dumb_ name, like Chadwick or something, who rode his bike to school every day but never bothered to lock it, even though everyone _knew_ that bikes were easy to steal.  He could borrow Chadwick’s or Gardiner or Griswold or whatever his stupid name was, bike, and he could ride home.  His dad wouldn’t be home, because he was going to Yale to his vocal coach, and he could have the whole house and the woods to himself, and he wouldn’t have to talk to Katie or Justin at all.

            He’d never skipped school before.  To be honest, he’d never really thought about skipping school before.  He was sick so often that missing school was a pain in the ass, trying to get his make-up work when the teachers were busy, and trying to do it as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t get a zero, and trying to borrow the notes from Katie – although Katie was really good about notes, and most of the notes for the lecture classes were posted online.

            Kai had skipped school once, when he was in first grade, and it had scared his parents, because they had both assumed that he’d been kidnapped.  That was back when they’d lived in Beverly Hills, and even the stupid schools were like gated communities because there were so many famous kids in them, but somehow Kai had managed to elude everyone.  He’d disappeared because he was mad at the teacher, who’d yelled at him or something, and that was when his parents had pulled them out of public school and when his mother had started talking about moving back to Connecticut, where her brothers lived.

            He didn’t mind living in Connecticut, or at least he hadn’t until now.  Maybe if they were still living in Beverly Hills it wouldn’t matter if your father was gay and cheating on your mother.  It was probably no big deal.  Everyone was cheating on everyone in Hollywood, or at least that’s what it seemed like.  Here in Connecticut his parents had invested an awful lot of time and effort in pretending that they were really normal people who just happened to be famous actors as a career choice, not as celebrities.  They were no richer than anyone else around, that’s for sure – and, Robin knew, in some cases, had less money than some of the kids’ parents he knew, who owned major companies.  The bottom line, however, was that his parents were not just normal people who happened to live in Connecticut.  They spent their lives playing pretend, he thought – playing pretend in front (or, in the case of his father, behind) of a camera and playing pretend in their real lives too.

            He wasn’t going to play pretend anymore.  When the bell rang, he ducked through the crowds, made easier because he didn’t have the Weir height, and it was really very simple, as kids were crossing the commons and there was chaos everywhere, to grab that Chadwick kid’s bike and just wheel it away.  He walked it off campus, acting as if this was something he did every day, and then, when he was about a block away from the school, got on it and began peddling towards home.

 

 

           


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clelie Campbell discovers that her husband is in a diabetic coma and her son is missing at the same time.

Chapter Twelve

 

 

 

 

            It was in the middle of the luncheon when her cell phone rang.  She’d meant to leave it on vibrate, but there it was, ringing the theme song to Jonathan’s show, and she was so embarrassed, but everyone just laughed warmly, and the woman sitting next to her said, in a low voice,

            “You are so lucky, my dear, to have such a wonderful marriage.”

            And she nodded and said yes, even as she was realising that it was Gail who was calling, Gail who was Jonathan’s one-woman everything, who ran his development company and answered his mail and had worked for him since he’d started directing full-time, after the show had been cancelled.

            “I have to take this call,” she said to Maggie, who was sitting next to her, and she got up and walked quickly away from the table and the private room, and stepped outside into the restaurant, leaving Maggie to explain, something Maggie did so very well. 

            Immediately the restaurant manager was by her side, and she said to Gail, “Hang on, I’m going somewhere private,” and the man led her into his personal office, so she wouldn’t have to take this call – a call from Gail, she couldn’t remember the last time Gail had called her – out of the eyes of everyone in the room who’d recognised her as the bilingual swears-like-a-sailor cop from Montréal.

            “Gail?” she said.  “It’s Clélie.  What is it?” and then she said, “I don’t understand.  When I left this morning, Jonno was in his office.  Yes, he knew he had the vocal coach this morning, he mentioned it to me.”

            She listened closely as Gail explained.  The vocal coach – Peter de Groot, a fine singer in his own right, now on the staff at Yale, which is how he and Jonathan knew each other – had called Gail, after Jonathan hadn’t answered his phone.  He was not at the appointment.  He was not answering his phone.  Did she know where he was? 

            She would take care of it, she told Gail.  She would call Gail back and let her know.  They’d been having some trouble with Robin, and maybe Jonathan had had to go to Robin’s school.  She would call the school.  She would try Jonathan herself.  She would go home, if she had to.

            “You should call 911,” Gail said.

            “What?” Suddenly Clélie couldn’t breathe.

            “Jonathan,” Gail said, “is too anxiety-driven an individual to miss an appointment with Peter, or to miss an appointment with anyone.  Maybe he fell.  Maybe he went for a walk in the woods and he twisted his ankle.  It will take you two or three hours to get home, Clélie – and the school would have called you first, because they know you’re on hiatus.  Call 911.”

            “The doors are locked,” Clélie said, stupidly.  “And Sunny won’t let anyone in.  She’ll bite them, and they’ll hurt her.”

            “Clélie,” Gail said firmly, “we are talking about your husband.  Sunny is his dog.  If he’s hurt, she’ll be leading them to him.  That’s who she is.  Call 911 and then call me as soon as you know something.”

            Maggie had appeared in the doorway of the office, standing there with the restaurant manager, and she said, still feeling stupid with shock, “Gail says Jonno missed his appointment with Peter.  She says to call 911, that something’s wrong.”

            “Jonathan has never missed an appointment in his life,” Maggie responded.  “You should listen to Gail.”

            “Okay,” Clélie said.  Then she said, “But we’re in the city.”

            “I’ll do it,” Maggie said, and she took out her cell and punched in the numbers.  She handed her phone to Clélie.  “Speak to them,” she said.

            “Police,” Clélie said to the 911 operator.  “This is Clélie Campbell.  I’m here in Manhattan, but I’m calling about my husband, who’s home alone in Lyme, Connecticut.  We can’t get him on his cell.  He’s missed a very important appointment.  He’s been under a lot of stress.  I need someone to go to the house. Yes, I’ll hold on.”  She said to Maggie, “They’re going to call the police in Lyme.”  Then she said, “This is Clélie Campbell.  Yes, that’s right.  No, there’s something wrong.  He was supposed to be in New Haven and he never got there.  He’s not answering his cell or the house phone.  I’m in Manhattan. Yes, please.  He could be hurt in the woods or something; he always takes the dog for a walk down to the river.”

            Maggie said, “I’ll go tell everyone we have to leave.”

            “Yes, I’m leaving now,” Clélie said.  “Yes, you can reach me on this number.  My boys?  Robin is at Larrabee and Kai is at Country Day.  Thank you.”

            She said to the manager, “I’m sorry, but I have to leave.”

            “It’s perfectly understandable, Miss Campbell,” he said.  “I hope that everything is all right.”

            Maggie walked up and said, “Come on, I’ve called the driver, let’s go.  He’ll be waiting outside for us.”

            “Okay,” Clélie agreed.

            She followed Maggie outside, still feeling stunned and not a little stupid.  What if this was just a tempest in a teapot?  What if Jonathan – who’d certainly been distracted lately, probably because of Robin – and who had had a migraine last night, simply shut his phone off and went to bed, and had forgotten to call Peter and cancel?

            The likelihood of that, she thought, as she slid into the back seat of the LincolnTown car, was nil.  Gail was right, and so was Maggie.  Jonathan hated being rude, and he hated people who were rude.  He’d never missed an appointment in his life, she was sure of it.  He was the kind of person who was fifteen minutes early to everything because he despised being late.  If Jonathan had had to cancel his coaching with Peter, he would have called to reschedule.  And Jonathan and Peter had been friends since Jonathan had attended Yale in the 70s.  There was no way that Jonathan would offend a friend.

            Her phone rang again.  It couldn’t be the police so soon, and then she saw it was Robin’s school.

            “Clélie Campbell,” she said.  She noticed that her hands were shaking.

            “Miss Campbell, this is Headmaster Gillespie.  Do you know where your son Robert is?”

            Clélie said, “I dropped him off to school this morning, before I left for Manhattan.”

            “Yes,” the headmaster said, “and he was here until the bell rang for lunch.  Now it is fourth period, and your son is no longer in school.  No one has come to pick him up.  I tried getting someone at the house, but there was no answer.”

            “Are you saying that my son has disappeared from school?” She couldn’t help but raise her voice at the end.  “You are supposed to keep him safe.”

            “Has your son ever skipped school before?” Gillespie asked.

            “Robin?  Skipping school?”  She felt her heart stop.  “Are you joking?  If you were talking about Kai, maybe – but Robin?  You need to call the police.  Robin would never skip school – and I’m on my way home right now, because I can’t get hold of my husband,” and then she just simply lost it.  “Oh, God,” she said, “what if someone’s taken both of them?”

            “Let me speak to Mr Gillespie,” Maggie said.  “You just try to calm down.  No one’s taken Jonathan, for God’s sake.  Or Robin either.”

            She was crying, softly, and she rummaged through her bag to find a tissue, and then wiped her eyes.

            “Mr Gillespie, this is Maggie Byrne, Miss Campbell’s assistant,” Maggie said in a level voice.  “Miss Campbell has just left a function in New York because Mr Weir’s assistant called and couldn’t get hold of him.  We’ve called the police already, and they are sending out a car to see if Mr Weir needs help.  We don’t know where Robin is – and that should be your jurisdiction.  He was left in your care, and you are responsible for him.  If you haven’t got an SRO looking for him, I suggest you do so now.  Robin has been under some stress recently, and it’s entirely possible that he just decided to go home – so perhaps you should have an SRO get in the car and drive along until he finds him.  I sincerely doubt that Robin would hitchhike home.”

            Clélie said, “He should be talking to Katie Lyman and Justin Robichaud.  They probably know exactly where Robin is.”

            “Mr Gillespie,” Maggie said, “have you spoken to Robin’s friends?”

            Clélie listened and then she said, “They should check Katie and Justin’s phone.  Robby probably texted them what he was doing.”

            Maggie repeated the information to the headmaster, who agreed that that was a likely case and who also said that he would have the police check Robin’s route home. 

            They were in WestchesterCounty now, driving up 95, past Larchmont, where she’d grown up and where her mother still lived. 

            “I need to call _Maman_ ,” Clélie said, “and I need to call Joe – Maggie, I wonder if Robby might have said something to Joe?”

            “I’ll call Joe,” Maggie said.  “That’s entirely possible.”

            “Oh, God,” Clélie said again.  “What could have happened to him?  Why haven’t the police called?  And where the hell is Robin?”  Then she said, “You call Joe.  I’ll call Country Day.  Maybe Kai knows where Robin went.”

            It was better, to be making the phone calls.  At least she was doing something, instead of sitting in the goddamned car, driving for hours.  She wondered yet again at the wisdom of having bought a house so far away from the city, when they could have easily afforded a home in Greenwich, or even somewhere in Westchester, where she’d grown up.  But Jonathan had only agreed to moving to Connecticut if they could buy acreage, because he’d grown up, not in suburbia but in rural western Massachusetts, and had spent his childhood roaming the woods and marshes.  He’d wanted that for the boys, a somewhat normal childhood, where there was a house full of friends and animals, where the kids knew everyone at school and went to Hebrew school and Sunday school.  He’d had a good childhood, he’d insisted, the son of two professors at UMass in Amherst; not like hers, the only daughter of two well-known soap and stage stars who’d put her on a stage by the time she was three.

            She spoke briefly with the principal of Country Day, who agreed to pull Kai out of class and would have him call her as soon as he was brought to the office.  She listened to Maggie’s terse conversation with Joe, who didn’t know anything, except that Robin had asked Joe if he’d drive him to the bookstore in Holbrook so he could find what he needed for his world history project, but that was for tomorrow, not today.  She wondered why Robin hadn’t asked her, and then realised it was of course because he was grounded, and maybe he’d thought she would have told him no.

            Why hadn’t the police called?  How long did it take them to send one car to her house?

            They had just crossed the Connecticut state line into Greenwich when her phone finally rang.

            “Clélie Campbell?” It was a young man’s voice.

            “Yes?” She was trembling again.

            “This is Constable Dominic Cabianco,” the young man said.  “I was able to find a key and enter your home at 21 Moss Hill Lane.  I have found your husband – Jonathan Weir – on the floor of his office.  The ambulance is on its way and should be here in approximately five minutes.  He is breathing but he is unconscious.  Miss Campbell, does your husband have diabetes?”

            “No,” Clélie said.  “No, he doesn’t.  Why are you asking that?  Why is he unconscious?”

            “It appears, ma’am,” Constable Cabianco said, “that your husband is in a diabetic coma.  I’ll know more when the ambulance arrives.  I can hear them now – “

            “Constable, don’t hang up,” she said hurriedly.  “My fourteen-year-old son is missing from school.  He’s not in the house with you, is he?  Robert?  Robert Weir?”

            “No, ma’am,” the constable answered.  “Just Mr Weir and the dogs.  I’ve got to go now, the ambulance is pulling up.”

            “Oh, God,” Clélie said, “please don’t take him to Middlesex, take him to New London, I’ll call his doctor – “

            “Ma’am,” Constable Cabianco said, “we don’t have the time to take him to New London.  Call your doctor and hope he has privileges at Middlesex.”   

            “What’s happened?” Maggie demanded.

            “He found Jonathan on the floor of his study,” Clélie said numbly.  “He wanted to know if Jon has diabetes.  He says Jon is in a diabetic coma.  They’re taking him to Middlesex.”

            “Robin’s not at the house?” Maggie asked, reaching for Clélie’s hand and holding it.

            Clélie shook her head.  “God, diabetes,” she repeated.  “No one in his family has diabetes.  I don’t even know what the symptoms are.”

            “It doesn’t matter now,” Maggie said sensibly.  “You’d better call Dave Goldstein and let him know they’re taking Jonathan to Middlesex.”

            “You’d better make a list of people to call,” Clélie said.  “I’ll call Dave, but then I have to call Gail.  And then call Joe back and let him know.  He’ll need to tell Robby when he’s found – oh, God.  Here’s the school with Kai.”

            Kai didn’t know where Robin was, or why Robin had left school.  She told him about his father, and told him to stay in the office.  She would come by and pick him up, and then they would drive to Middlesex together.

            “I’ll text Robin,” Kai offered.  “Maybe he’ll talk to me.”

            “Okay,” Clélie agreed.  “I hope he talks to one of you, you or Joe or even Katie or Justin.  I don’t understand what’s gotten into him.”

            “Mom,” Kai said, “if it were me, you’d be rolling your eyes.  Robin has to be bad sometimes.  Geez.”

            Unexpectedly, Clélie laughed.  “Kai, that’s the most sensible thing you’ve ever said,” she replied.  “But can you boys at least warn us when you’re going to do the whole Freaky Friday thing?  At least I’d have been prepared.”

            She shook her head, listening to Kai giggle, and it was then that the call from her brother Joe came through.

            “Sis, I’ve got him,” Joe said, sounding thoroughly aggrieved.  “He stole a bike from school and was riding home.  I’m taking him back to school, to return the bike, but I won’t promise not to beat his ass.”

            “Joey,” Clélie said, “Joey, listen to me.  I’m on my way home.  The constable called me and they’ve found Jonathan unconscious in his study.  The ambulance is taking him to Middlesex.  You and Robin stay at the school.  We’re picking up Kai at Country Day, and then we’ll come get the two of you.”

            “Jesus Christ,” Joe said.  “What the hell happened?”

            “I don’t know,” Clélie answered.  “The constable said something about Jon being in a diabetic coma, except that Jon doesn’t have diabetes.  I’ve got to call Dave Goldstein and let him know.”

            “Look, Sis, don’t come for us,” Joe said.  “We’ll return the bicycle and I’ll drive Robin straight to Middlesex and meet you there.  You call the doctor.  I’ll call _Maman_ and Iain.”

            “Okay,” she said.  “Thanks, Joey.”

            Maggie was already on the phone to Dave Goldstein’s office.  She couldn’t imagine what had happened to Jonathan.  She couldn’t lose him.  She blinked away her tears, and punched in the number for Gail.

           

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe Campbell finds Robin and Robin learns of his father's illness.

Chapter Thirteen

 

 

 

 

            He’d actually been enjoying riding Chadwick’s bike down the country lane that served as a state road back to his house.  He’d seen one box turtle, obviously looking for a springtime mate, and helped it across the road.  He’d heard the birds singing – his mother called them twitterpated, after the movie _Bambi_ – and he’d enjoyed the cooler air.  Periodically he felt his phone vibrate against his leg, and he thought, Oh well. 

            He’d never felt so free.

            He stopped at a corner store and bought a bottle of water and a candy bar, and although he’d gotten a strange look from the clerk, nothing had been said.  Maybe kids skipped school all the time and he’d just never known it.  Maybe it was a town tradition.

            He drank the bottle of water, because the stupid kid Chadwick didn’t even have a saddlebag, let alone a basket, and then he finished the Snickers bar, and got back on the bike and took off.  Hs phone vibrated again, and he figured that maybe, just maybe, someone had realised he hadn’t gone to class.  It was probably Katie.  Really, he thought, Katie should learn to back off.

            By the time he’d gotten to the second of the steep hills that were on the way home – it was amazing, what you didn’t know, about your ride home when you were being driven – he was walking the bike.  He hadn’t decided that it was a bad idea; he wasn’t that badly out of shape or out of breath.  And, actually, walking the bike made it quieter and more beautiful, despite the cars that went speeding by him, kicking up the sand that had been left over from the winter storms.  There were so many creeks to explore – he’d even left the bike propped against the bridge guard rail of one and had stumbled down the rocky path to look at it.  He’d seen a crayfish and some frogs, before he’d decided to climb back up and get moving again.

            He was walking the bike when he heard a car horn beep behind him, and he hugged the side of the road even more, to let it pass.  Instead, it passed him and then pulled over, coming to an abrupt halt.  It took him a minute to realise it was his Uncle Joe’s truck, and he stopped walking and just stood there, holding Chadwick’s bike.

            Joe opened the car door and said, slamming it, “What the hell do you think you are doing?”

            Joe was usually such a normal guy – maybe it was because he was a musician – that Robin had completely forgotten he was an adult.  He and Joe hung out a lot together, playing the guitar and the keyboards, sometimes going to the studio and watching Joe and Iain work the board, learning the trade, as Joe said.  He would definitely not abandon music the way his father had, although his father still did guest appearances with pops orchestra and did the occasional show on the Upper West Side….

            “Robert!” Joe was red in the face and yelling.  “Answer me.”

            He hadn’t ever seen this side of Joe.  “I was going home,” he said.

            “You were skipping?  What’s gotten into you?  Don’t you miss enough school as it is?  Your mother,” he said, “is frantic.  Totally undone, crying in the car on her way back here.  You did that, you little –“  Joe pulled himself up.  “You made your mother cry.”

            Robin didn’t know what to say.  That the school would have realised he was missing so quickly.  That the headmaster would have called his mother.  That she had cancelled her luncheon for Catholic Charities and was coming home.

            “Other kids skip school,” he said.

            “Other kids do drugs and steal and kill,” Joe said.  “Are those next on your agenda?”

            “No,” he said quietly, and then he realised that he was standing there holding Chadwick’s bike.

            “Whose bike is that?” Joe said now, almost as if he could read Robin’s mind.

            “I kinda borrowed it,” Robin said, “from this kid at school…”

            “Jesus Christ!” Joe exploded.  “Stealing, too!  You’re not too big to spank, you know, and if your father doesn’t have the guts to take a belt to you, I will.”

            Robin just stared at him.  He’d never been spanked.  He couldn’t remember anyone hitting him, ever. 

            Joe said, “I’m calling your mother, to let her know I’ve found you, before she has a nervous breakdown.  And then we’re putting the bike in the truck and I’m driving you back to school.”

            “Okay,” Robin said.

            “The police are looking for you, for God’s sake,” Joe said, and he punched in the number for Robin’s mother and said, “Sis, I’ve got him.  He stole a bike from school and was riding home.  I’m taking him back to school, to return the bike, but I won’t promise not to beat his ass.”

            Robin knew his mother would never let anyone beat his ass, and he waited to hear her tell that to her brother, who had clearly lost his mind.  Instead Joe said,

            “Jesus Christ!  What the hell happened?”

            And Robin suddenly knew, in the pit of his stomach, that his skipping school was somehow the least of his mother’s worries.

            “Look, Sis,” Joe was saying, and he took the bike from Robin’s hands, and opened the back to his Suburban, and lifted the bike in, “don’t come for us.  We’ll return the bicycle and I’ll drive Robin straight to Middlesex and meet you there.  You call the doctor.  I’ll call _Maman_ and Iain.  Yeah, okay.” Joe looked at Robin as he slammed the truck’s back down and said, “Get in the truck.”

            “Yes, sir,” Robin said. 

            He climbed into the front seat and put his seat belt on.  He waited until his Uncle Joe was in the driver’s seat and had turned the ignition before he said, in a small voice,

            “What’s happened?  Is Kai hurt?” because it could only be Kai who would end up in the ER at Middlesex.

            Joe said, “Your father’s assistant couldn’t get hold of him, when he missed his appointment in New Haven, so she called your mother.  Your mother called 911 when no one could get him.  The police found your father on the floor of his study, unconscious.  He’s being taken to MiddlesexHospital.  We’ll meet your mother and Kai there.”

            “Oh,” Robin said.

            This was because of him.  Because he wished that it would happen.  Because when his father hadn’t come down for breakfast, he’d thought it would serve him right to have something happen to him, because he was an asshole.

            “Yeah, _oh_ indeed,” Joe said sarcastically.  He put his Bluetooth earpiece in and told the phone to call his mother.  In French he said, “Maman?  It’s Joe.  Jonathan is in a diabetic coma, in the ambulance on the way to Middlesex Hospital.  No, I don’t know anything else.  I’ve got Robin, and I’m meeting Clélie and Kai at the emergency room.”

            Robin tuned it out, because Joe was speaking much too fast for him to understand.  What had happened to his father?  His mother had called 911 from New York?  He didn’t want to, but he started to cry.

            Joe said, in English, “I have to go.”  He glanced at Robin, who was looking out the window and crying quietly.  “Robby.  I’m sure your dad will be okay.  The cop said something about your dad having diabetes – your mom wasn’t very clear on that – but we don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

            “It’s my fault,” Robin said. 

            Joe sighed.  “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he said.  “But your dad didn’t know that you’d skipped school, so you can’t blame yourself for this.”

            “I’ve been mad at him,” Robin said.  “And I’ve been awful and it was stressing him out.  So it _is_ my fault.”

            “You two were fine the other day, when I was there, weren’t you?” Joe asked.  “That wasn’t even a week ago, Robby.  You can’t stress someone out into unconsciousness, trust me.  We’ll drop the bike off and go straight to the ER.”

            “Yeah, whatever,” Robin said.

            He wiped his face on his sleeve.  The idea of his dad lying on the floor of his office.  Then he thought, it was Gail who saved him.  The voice coach from Yale had called Gail and Gail had called his mom.  Then he thought, what if he’s not saved?  What if he’s dead?  What if he were already dead and he didn’t even know, sitting in Uncle Joe’s truck and feeling sorry for himself?

            “He’ll be fine,” Joe said.  “Let’s just worry about dealing with the school first.”

            And Robin thought, who will tell Uncle Hugh?

 

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gail is instructed, by letter, to call Hugh in the event that something happens to Jonathan. Hugh decides to cancel his performances in The Tempest and fly to Connecticut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this original work as a spinoff to the real world novel I am writing. That novel is called The Mortal Part, and is told from the point-of-view of Sir Hugh Ross as he navigates his first year of mourning without his partner, actor Jonathan Weir, who died suddenly at the age of 58. In the timeline of The Mortal Part, Jonathan Weir's children, Robin and Kai, are little when his relationship with Hugh Ross is "outed" by a fellow actor, and he and Hugh marry in Massachusetts as soon as gay marriage became legal. When Jonathan dies in 2012, his son Robin is 16.
> 
> When the Exodus Begins is a look at these characters from the perspective of Robin Weir, age 14 -- in a totally different timeline. As I've made my 50,000 words for NaNo, I've stopped with this story in the middle of Chapter 15 (I joined this story with another that I am writing every day) so that I can go back to working on The Mortal Part, which is due to my agent in the spring.
> 
> I am not abandoning this story, however. I have enjoyed this timeline and this take on the story, and I expect I will turn back to it, once A Million Sherds (my TNG novel) and The Mortal Part are finished. Or maybe I'll write a new chapter once a week or so....

Chapter Fourteen

 

 

 

 

            He was supposed to have dinner with everyone, as they were winding up the show, Barrie and Trefor and Stephen his director and they were going to talk about taking the show to New York, and where everyone would stay, and all those practical issues when you bring a play as large as The Tempest across the pond.  However, when he’d finished the phone call to Jonathan he felt so awful, because Jonno had just hung up on him, and he wanted so dreadfully to just throw in everything and fly to New York, that he called up Stephen and told him he was very tired, and worried that he would be under the weather, and that he’d decided to just stay in.  Stephen had offered to bring everyone to him, but that was the last thing he wanted – he politely declined.  In fact, he couldn’t help but remember when Jonathan had done a short film of Melville’s novella _Bartleby the Scrivener_ and he’d laughed and said to Stephen, “I would prefer not to.”

            So he’d gotten his wish, and he was on his own in his flat, and he knew he should probably call Bethie to tell her that he’d told Jonathan, and that Jonathan was, predictably, angry, and had hung up the phone on him.  And then he thought, like the simpleton he was, one can’t actually say “hung up the phone” anymore, so what does one call it, when one partner is furious and ends the call abruptly?  It was so much more satisfying, wasn’t it, in the cataloguing of hurts, to say, You hung up on me.

            Well, if he were Leporello and he was writing the list of all the times Jonathan had hurt him, it wouldn’t be Don Giovanni’s list of conquests, that’s for sure.  He’d hurt Jonathan far more than Jonathan had ever hurt him.  Jonathan was incapable of hurting anyone…except that wasn’t how his family would see it.  They would all be hurt, not only Clélie and the boys, but Jonno’s mother, and Clélie’s family, and even, he thought, the cast of their show.

            Because they hadn’t told anyone on the show, even though he knew that Charles had suspected, being gay and firmly in the closet himself, but had never once asked nor had he ever once said anything to either of them.  But Jack, who’d been his first friend on the set, and the person he was closest to even as he was falling in love with Jon, and Jonno, who’d been so close to Callie…They’d hidden it all so well.  It would be a tremendous shock.  And there would be hurt feelings all around.

            There was nothing to be done for it.  Jonathan was dealing the best he could, and Jonathan was a strong man, a competent man.  He’d hold it together until Hugh could arrive.  And, he thought, he’d even managed to plant the seed about Jonno playing Ariel.

Then he was back to moping again, and he thought that he’d better get a grip, and he got himself dressed and went out and around the corner for some take-away.

            He felt invigorated, in the chill June air, and he took a brisk walk before he headed back to his flat.  He set the food down in the kitchen, and grabbed a plate and a fork and some serviettes, and was just about to pour himself a beer when he heard Jonathan’s mobile ring, back in his study.  He left the food on the table and rushed to get it before it rang off.  Glancing at his watch he saw that it was the middle of the day, and he wondered why Jonno wasn’t at Yale and working with Peter on Cervantes.

            “Jonno?” he said.

            “Mr Ross?” It was a woman’s voice.

            He had no idea who it was.

            “How did you get this number?” he demanded, suddenly afraid.  Had their account been hacked?

            “This is Gail Levin,” the woman said.  “I’m Jonathan Weir’s assistant.”

            Now he was afraid.  “Oh, Gail,” he said.  “Yes, I don’t believe we’ve talked before.”

            “Are you in London right now?” the woman asked.

            “Yes,” he said.  “What’s happened?  Why are you calling me?  Where’s Jonathan?”

            “Maybe you should sit down,” Gail Levin said.

            “Oh, dear God.”  Hugh sat.

            “Mr Ross left instructions for me to call you, if he were ever incapacitated in anyway,” Gail said.  “I – “ She faltered, and then said, “He said he’d left me a letter and I should read it, and I’d know when I should.”

            “Please,” Hugh begged, “please do not tell me that Jonathan is dead.”

            “No,” she said, “no, he’s in the intensive care unit at Middlesex Hospital in Connecticut.  He’s in a diabetic coma.  The doctor thinks he’ll be able to come out of it okay, but he – we nearly lost him.  Did you know he had diabetes?”

            “No,” Hugh said, trying to recover.  “He’s not dead?”

            “No, Mr Ross,” Gail answered.  “He’s in a coma, but they think they can bring him out of it.”

            “What happened?” Hugh felt his whole body start to shake and he did his best to still it.

            “Peter de Groot called me when Jonathan didn’t make his appointment,” Gail said.  “He’d tried to call Jonathan and he didn’t answer.  I have two other numbers for Jonno, but he didn’t answer those either.  I called Clélie, who was in Manhattan at a charity function.  Clélie and I were both worried – it wasn’t like him – so Clélie called 911 from Manhattan, and they sent a constable to the house.  The constable found Jonathan on the floor of his study, unconscious, and performed CPR and called an ambulance.”

            “And the lad?” Hugh said.  “Robin?  How’s the lad?”

            “Robin?” Gail asked.  “Other than the fact that he apparently skipped school in the middle of all this, he’s fine.”

            “Do you,” Hugh asked, “understand why Jonathan asked you to call me?”

            There was silence, and then Gail said, “He explained your relationship in the letter he asked me to read.”

            “And will you respect his wishes, Gail?” Hugh asked.  “Because I don’t give a shite whether anyone thinks I’m gay or bi or the fucking Queen of England.  But Jonathan’s need for privacy has to be respected.”

            “Jonathan is my employer,” Gail said.  “And also my friend.  I would never do anything to hurt him.  Ever.”

            “Then I want you to understand two things, Gail,” Hugh said, “and I know I’ve a reputation as a bit of a troublemaker, but I could not be any more serious.  I love Jonathan more than I have ever loved anyone in my entire life.  Amazingly enough, Jonathan loves me.  I have four more days to go on this play and then we close it down, and I will fly to New York as soon as the play is over.  Will you keep me updated on his status on this number until I can get there?”

            “Yes,” Gail said.

            “Good,” Hugh said.  “Find out whatever you can and tell me, whenever you can.  Don’t worry about the time difference, I don’t bloody care.  The other thing is the lad, Robin.  Robin knows about his father and me.  It was a causing a good bit of turmoil, both for the lad, and for Jonno.  I’d only told Jonno today that Robin knew – he’d emailed me and asked.  Robin’s been acting out, and is very angry with his father – and now the poor wee bairn must be feeling horribly, thinking he caused this, with all the stress Jonathan was under.”  He paused.  “I was meeting with Robin when I came into New York next week, to try to help him understand.  I don’t know what he’ll do, now, the poor kid.”

            “Are you absolutely sure, Mr Ross, that you can’t come any sooner than four days from now?”

            Hugh thought, what if he dies, and I never get a chance to hold him again?  “No,” Hugh said.  “No, I’m not certain.  I’ll call the director.  All of this is going to explode anyway; the lad won’t be able to keep it to himself now that his father’s so ill.  I will let you know when I arrive in New York.”

            “I think that is for the best,” Gail Levin said.

            “What aren’t you telling me?” Hugh said, and he heard his voice break.

            “Do you know anything at all about diabetes?” she asked.

            “Aye, my mother had it, it’s why she passed,” Hugh said, “it’s a terrible illness, but Jonno didn’t have it.  He would have told me.”

            “His blood sugar was almost seven hundred,” Gail said.

            “Sweet God and all the saints,” Hugh said.  “How could he come out of a coma, if his blood sugar was that high?  He’ll have had a stroke.  He’ll be blind….”

            “He hasn’t had a stroke,” Gail said, “although I don’t know why.  As for anything else, we won’t know until tomorrow.”

            “But there are no guarantees of anything,” Hugh said, “not with this disease.  That I know.”  He was silent for a moment and then he said, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your calling me for Jonathan.  I know this is probably a shock to you too, having worked with him and yet not knowing about us.  I will let you know my plans as soon as I know them – but promise me, Gail, that you’ll look after Jonno’s boy.  He must be hurting so.”

            “I will, Mr Ross,” Gail said.  “I’m sorry, for having to make this call.  The doctor says that overall Jonathan is very strong.  He’s sure he’ll be okay.”

            She rang off.

            Hugh sat with the mobile in his hands and thought, I did this.  I should never have told Robin the truth.  The one bloody time in my life I didn’t lie, when I should have.  He waited for the tears to come, but they never did.

            He switched mobiles, and called Stephen, and told him that he was canceling his last four performances; that his lover Jonathan Weir was ill and possibly dying, and he would be flying to New York in the morning to be with him.

 

 

 


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